<P> The "Golden Age" of cricket is a nostalgic term that has often been applied in cricket literature to the period in English cricket from 1890, the opening season of the official County Championship, to the outbreak of World War I which occurred just before the scheduled end of the 1914 season . The term has also gained currency in Australian cricket of the same period and in America re the Philadelphian cricket team . </P> <P> The period became infused with a nostalgic yearning, ostensibly because the teams played cricket according to "the spirit of the game". More poignantly, the nostalgia was due to loss of life in the Great War and a hankering for those happier times before the war's outbreak . A number of first - class cricketers were killed or wounded during the war, the deaths including eight Test players: Colin Blythe, Major Booth and Kenneth Hutchings of England; Tibby Cotter of Australia; Reginald Hands, Bill Lundie, Reggie Schwarz and Gordon White of South Africa . The war years also saw the deaths of W.G. Grace and Victor Trumper, who both succumbed to illness in 1915 . </P> <P> Cricket of the period did feature numerous great names such as Grace, Trumper, Blythe, Wilfred Rhodes, Jack Hobbs, C.B. Fry, Ranjitsinhji and Frank Woolley, but that in itself is not unique as any period in cricket history can boast its great players . As David Frith pointed out, the nostalgia "needed someone to put a perspective on it". In his 1939 autobiography, Fry wrote: "I have a notion that the cricket of the nineties and early nineteen hundreds was more amusing to watch, but I am not at all sure that the game of today is not more difficult to play". </P> <P> In Australian cricket, the period is also considered a golden age . Cricket writer Jack Pollard wrote: "The golden age of cricket has always been regarded as the period between 1890 and 1914 . For in all those years all the skills of the game flowered and an unprecedented array of great batsman and bowlers delighted informed and appreciative galleries . More importantly the players of that time set standards for sportsmanship that lifted cricket above other games and established it as a character - builder and an integral part of the social scene". </P>

Who are the heros of cricket admired by cardus in his golden age of cricket