Style
Dexter's power amazed everyone who had not had the joy of watching him in other innings in England and in Perth. He took chances - thank goodness for those who look on batting as a challenge! - but he made superb strokes, with his driving tremendous in power and placement. Sometimes, in fact, the placement didn't matter so much because the power sent the ball through men recognized as outstanding fielders. Once such stroke, a cover-drive, was through Thomas's legs just as he got his hands there. I felt glad that the ball went between his legs and that his hands were not behind it. Not even Jehu drove more furiously than Dexter, and a direct hit on the leg or hands might well have put this accomplished fieldsman out of action.
- Johnnie Moyes
Ted Dexter was a cavalier batsman in the old amateur style and a ferocious strokemaker, but was known as being moody and mercurial. As a batsman he could leave the hands of the fielders team bruised and reddened with his powerful drives and cuts. To see "Lord Ted" thrashing the fast bowling was one of the most thrilling sights in cricket and he could make any run chase look possible. His great fault was that he seldom gave a bowling attack due respect and got himself out with rash strokes. Though more a batsman than a bowler he could seam and swing the ball, was a useful third paceman even at Test level and was an excellent fielder anywhere. Dexter was a natural one day player, where his big hitting, tidy bowling, keen fielding and lively captaincy gave Sussex their first two trophies - the inaugural Gillette Cup in 1963 and again in 1964. He devised innovative field placings for limited overs games and his 'ideas changed the game forever. It is no exaggeration to say that Dexter was the man who shaped modern cricket'. In first-class matches he bored easily and his strokes of genius were in the end outweighed by his mistakes. As captain he had "more theories than Charles Darwin", sometimes shifting fielders on a whim and was hailed as a genius if a wicket fell as a result. He was dictatorial on the field, rarely consulting with his bowlers about field placings and pulling them off by saying "You've had enough now. Get down to third man"
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Famous quotes containing the word style:
“Always, however brutal an age may actually have been, its style transmits its music only.”
—André Malraux (1901–1976)
“The difference between style and taste is never easy to define, but style tends to be centered on the social, and taste upon the individual. Style then works along axes of similarity to identify group membership, to relate to the social order; taste works within style to differentiate and construct the individual. Style speaks about social factors such as class, age, and other more flexible, less definable social formations; taste talks of the individual inflection of the social.”
—John Fiske (b. 1939)
“I am so tired of taking to others
translating my life for the deaf, the blind,
the “I really want to know what your life is like without giving up any of my privileges
to live it” white women
the “I want to live my white life with Third World women’s style and keep my skin
class privileges” dykes”
—Lorraine Bethel, African American lesbian feminist poet. “What Chou Mean We, White Girl?” Lines 49-54 (1979)