Colin Cowdrey - Career

Career

Colin Cowdrey was born in Bangalore, British India. His father named him Michael Colin Cowdrey, to give him the same initials as cricket's most famous club the Marylebone Cricket Club. He was educated at the Bishop Cotton Boys' School, Bangalore, Homefield Preparatory School, Sutton, Tonbridge School and Brasenose College, Oxford, which he left without taking a degree. He became the youngest player ever to appear in a match at Lord's when, at the age of 13, in July 1946 he played for Tonbridge against Clifton. He scored 75 and 44 and took eight wickets in the match. Four years later he made his first-class debut for Kent County Cricket Club, where he would remain a player until his retirement in 1976. He played for Oxford University in 1952-1954. He was appointed captain of Kent in 1956 and in 1970 he led Kent to their first County Championship since 1913.

Cowdrey made his England debut on the 1954-55 tour of Australia and New Zealand and made his maiden Test hundred at Melbourne in the Boxing Day Test match 1954. He was appointed England Captain in 1959 for a Test match against the country of his birth - he captained England 27 times, appointed and re-appointed due to ill health in 1959-62, 1966, and 1967-69 (Won 8, Drawn 15, Lost 4). After losing the First Test against Australia in 1968 he won 1 and drew 6 of the next 7 Tests, which Ray Illingworth extended to a record run of 27 Tests without defeat between 1968-69. Cowdrey had snapped an Achilles tendon in the summer of 1969 and Illingworth was appointed in his stead, but proved so successful that he was retained even after Cowdrey recovered in 1970. He toured Australia a record six times in 1954–55, 1958–59, 1962–63, 1965–66, 1970–71 and 1974–75, each time under a different captain and four times as vice-captain

In 1963, facing the West Indies in a Lord's Test match, he came in to bat with a broken wrist in plaster (fortunately he did not have to face a ball; if it had been necessary, he said he would have done so holding the bat with one hand). Had he not batted, England would have lost, but his appearance caused the match to be drawn.

At the beginning of the 1973 English season Cowdrey headed the list of the then all time highest aggregate Test match run scorers with 7700 runs. He ended his career after playing his final Test against Australia in 1974-75. He was called up for this series in the middle of the winter when England batsman had been ruled out due to injury after the 1st Test. Although some in the Australian press ridiculed his recall at 41 (he had been preferred over younger batsmen thanks to good form in the previous season and experience of Australian conditions, although he had not played in Tests for 3½ years), he was given a warm reception when walking out to bat in the 2nd Test of that series at Perth and reported to have shown guts and good technique against the fast bowling of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, despite having not played cricket since the English summer and having only 3 days to prepare himself for the Test after a long, delay-stricken journey to Australia. In making this tour he became only the second English player to tour Australia six times. He had some success in the 2nd Test (his first match), making 22 and 41, but he struggled thereafter, ending the series with only 165 runs at 18.33.

In total he played 114 Tests and scored 7624 Test runs at an average of 44.06, including 22 centuries (the 241 runs he had scored against the Rest of the World in 1970 no longer count as Test match runs).

Following his retirement in 1976, Colin Cowdrey worked closely behind the scenes at Kent, became President of the MCC in 1986 and was Chairman of the International Cricket Council from 1989-1993. He was President of Kent County Cricket Club in 2000.