LIKEN it to a first-class cricket innings and John Mountford’s written and statistical history of Guernsey representative cricket is a world beater, easily surpassing Brian Lara’s record score of 501.

It is monumental, fantastic, richly informative and a sheer joy for anyone who has a remote interest in the history of the domestic and Channel Island game at its highest level.

It took the man, who also served the Guernsey Cricket Board as its secretary and spends hours working on the Port Soif cricket wicket, four years to complete.

His regular presence at the Priaulx Library has been such that they are thinking naming a room after the retired teacher.

His inspiration for the Tolstoyan work was the Muratti and Upton Park Cup books researched and published by Frank Cusack.