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Michael Colin Cowdrey, Baron Cowdrey of Tonbridge, was an English cricketer who played for Kent County Cricket Club from 1950 to 1976, and in 114 Test matches for England from 1954 to 1975. He was born in Ootacamund, Madras Presidency, British India and died in Littlehampton, West Sussex.
James Charles Laker was an English professional cricketer who played for Surrey County Cricket Club from 1946 to 1959 and represented England in 46 Test matches. He was born in Shipley, West Riding of Yorkshire, and died in Wimbledon, London.
Alan Philip Eric Knott is a former cricketer who represented England at international level in both Tests and One-Day Internationals (ODI). Knott is widely regarded as one of the most eccentric characters in cricket and as one of the greatest wicket-keepers ever to play the game. He was described by cricket journalist Simon Wilde as "a natural gloveman, beautifully economical in his movements and armed with tremendous powers of concentration".
Kenneth Frank Barrington, was an English international cricketer who played for the England cricket team and Surrey County Cricket Club in the 1950s and 1960s. He was a right-handed batsman and occasional leg-spin bowler, known for his jovial good humour and long, defensive innings "batting with bulldog determination and awesome concentration".
Norman Walter Dransfield Yardley was an English cricketer who played for Cambridge University, Yorkshire County Cricket Club and England, as a right-handed batsman and occasional bowler. An amateur, he captained Yorkshire from 1948 to 1955 and England on fourteen occasions between 1947 and 1950, winning four Tests, losing seven and drawing three. Yardley was named Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1948, and in his obituary in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack he was described as Yorkshire's finest amateur since Stanley Jackson.
Peter Barker Howard May was an English cricketer who played for Surrey County Cricket Club, Cambridge University and England. Already a cricketing prodigy during his school days, May played his entire cricket career as an amateur, and was regarded by many players and fans as England's finest batsman in the post-war era.
Raymond Illingworth CBE was an English cricketer, cricket commentator and administrator. As of 2015, he was one of only nine players to have taken 2,000 wickets and made 20,000 runs in first-class cricket. He played for Yorkshire, Leicestershire (1969–1978) and England (1958–1973) and was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1960.
The Wisden Trophy was awarded to the winner of the Test cricket series played between England and the West Indies. It was first awarded in 1963 to commemorate the hundredth edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. Series were played in accordance with the future tours programme, with varying lengths of time between tours. If a series was drawn then the country holding the Wisden Trophy retained it. In 2020, it was announced that the trophy would be replaced by the Richards–Botham Trophy named after Sir Vivian Richards and Sir Ian Botham.
1939 was the 46th cricket season in England since the introduction of the County Championship in 1890. It was the one and only season in which English cricket adopted the eight-ball over. 1939 was the last season before the Second World War and it was not until 1946 that first-class cricket could resume in England on a normal basis. The West Indies were on tour and England won the Test series 1–0. The West Indian team departed early, with several matches cancelled, because of the growing international crisis.
1955 was the 56th season of County Championship cricket in England and there was a continuation of Surrey's complete dominance as they won a fourth successive championship title and a second consecutive Minor Counties title. England defeated South Africa 3–2.
The 1980 English cricket season was the 81st in which the County Championship had been an official competition. West Indies defeated England in the summer's Test series 1–0, rain ensuring that the other four matches were all drawn. A single Test was played between England and Australia to commemorate the centenary of the first Test played in England in 1880. The match was drawn. The County Championship was won by Middlesex.
Peter May captained the English cricket team in Australia in 1958–59, playing as England in the 1958–59 Ashes series against the Australians and as the MCC in their other matches on the tour. It was widely regarded as one of the strongest teams to depart English shores, comparable with the great teams of Johnny Douglas in 1911-12 and Percy Chapman in 1928-29. It had no obvious weaknesses, and yet it was beaten – and beaten badly. By the First Test the top batsmen had made runs, the Surrey trio of Loader, Laker and Lock had taken wickets, as had Lancashire's Brian Statham. South Australia, Victoria and an Australian XI had all been beaten – the last by the crushing margin of 345 runs – and all seemed rosy for Peter May's touring team. But in the Brisbane Test they lost by 8 wickets and the rest of the series failed to offer any hope of reversing their fortunes. The reasons for their failure were manifold; the captain was too defensive; injuries affected their best players; others were too young and inexperienced such as Arthur Milton, Raman Subba Row, Ted Dexter, Roy Swetman and John Mortimore, or at the end of their career; Godfrey Evans, Trevor Bailey, Jim Laker, Willie Watson and Frank Tyson. Their morale was further bruised when faced with bowlers of dubious legality and unsympathetic umpires. Peter May was criticised for seeing his fiancée Virginia Gilligan, who was travelling with her uncle the Test Match commentator Arthur Gilligan. The press blamed the poor performance on the team's heavy drinking, bad behaviour and lack of pride – a foretaste the treatment losing teams would receive in the 1980s. It was not a happy tour by any means and it would take 12 years to recover The Ashes. As E.W. Swanton noted
It was a tour which saw all sorts of perverse happenings – from an injury list that never stopped, to the dis-satisfaction with umpiring and bowlers' actions that so undermined morale. From various causes England gave below their best...
1956 was the 57th season of County Championship cricket in England. It is memorable for the performances of Jim Laker, especially his unique feat in taking a world record 19 wickets in the Old Trafford Test Match. He took a total of 46 wickets in the five Tests, a record in an England-Australia series. In May, he had taken all ten wickets in the Australian first innings in their match against Surrey, assisting Surrey to become the first county side since 1912 to defeat the Australians. Surrey won the County Championship for the fifth successive year to create a new record of consecutive titles won by one county.
1958 was the 59th season of County Championship cricket in England. Surrey captain Peter May topped the batting averages for the third time and his team won a record seventh successive title. England defeated the touring New Zealand side 4–0 in a Test match series.
1961 was the 62nd season of County Championship cricket in England. Australia retained the Ashes by winning the Test series 2–1. Hampshire won their first championship title.
1962 was the 63rd season of County Championship cricket in England.
1910 was the 21st season of County Championship cricket in England. Kent won a second successive title. Norfolk won the Minor Counties Championship, defeating Berkshire in the final challenge match. There were no overseas tours to England during the season, the English team having toured South Africa over the 1909–10 winter. A tour to the West Indies also took place over the 1910–11 winter.
The New Zealand cricket team toured England in the 1958 season. In a notably wet summer when the touring side lost the equivalent of 29 full days of cricket, the side lost four of the five Test matches. In first-class matches, they won six of their first nine games, but then won only one more all season, although they only lost two matches outside the Tests, both of them to Surrey.
The Pakistan cricket team toured England in the 1962 season to play a five-match Test series against England. They also played a match in Ireland. The team is officially termed the Second Pakistanis as it was their second tour of England, following their inaugural tour in 1954. The Test series was the third between the two teams after those in England in 1954 and in Pakistan in 1961–62. Ted Dexter captained England in four Tests and Colin Cowdrey in one; Javed Burki captained Pakistan in all five Tests. England won the series 4–0 with one match drawn.
The England cricket team toured South Africa in the 1956–57 season. The tour was organised by the Marylebone Cricket Club and the side played five Test matches as "England" and 15 other first-class matches as "MCC". Two of the first-class matches took place in Rhodesia in what is now Zimbabwe.