Ted Dexter: A cricketer whose talent helped shape the modern game

One of the finest players of his generation, Ted Dexter, who died at the age of 86, was a great athlete, both steep and bad. Initially emerging as a huge promise as a cricketer before he achieved visible success at the Test match level, his captivating flair helped save the sport from the worst and transform it into today’s multi-million pound industry. When he retired at his best, Lord Ted, like this cricketer TE Lawrence, was widely known, then continued to pursue many interests, including flying, playing golf at his best, writing, submitting, modeling and running a successful public relations company while owning both horses and greyhounds. The short path to politics proved to be a rare failure.

Milan-born insurance broker’s middle son, Edward Ralph Dexter, spent much of his early life in Italy. His father, Ralph, a good cricketer himself, had moved from London to help revive a somewhat dormant industry. He quickly earned money and married a divorced Englishman. During World War II, the family returned to England. Studied at Radley College and brilliant both in the classroom and on the field, the younger Dexter proved to be a great rugby half, made it to the Public Schools Rackets Doubles final and was the star of the first cricket XI for four years. In 1952, he first appeared in the Lords, representing public schools against combined services. The national service was spent mainly in Malaya as a commissioner on the 11th hussar.

When Dexter moved to Jesus College in Cambridge to read modern languages ​​in 1955, Dexter initially achieved greater success on the golf course. After winning the blues for both golf and cricket and although he made his duck in his first class cricket debut at the University of Cambridge against Surrey in April 1956, he soon became a pure ticket. A right-handed medium-sized batsman who can drive with wild power from both his front and hind legs when the wind can destroy the finest bowling attacks. Few have hit the ball harder, and his excellent record proves both his courage and his technique. A great field player with a slightly dull approach, he was also a rather undervalued fast and medium-sized bowler who was always able to break even the most stubborn partnerships.

After taking two impressive centuries against Sussex as a student in 1957, Dexter was persuaded to join the county. As an amateur, he played the transition from college to county cricket in a typically glorious manner, and was capped in 1959, his first full season. Twelve months after Robin Marlar’s ​​company as captain, his appointment soon attracted a large supporter to the county’s life. He was always an innovative thinker and quickly realized how best to play the one-day game he had just arrived. He led Sussex to victories in the first two years of the Gillette Cup: they won Worcestershire in 1963 and Warwickshire 12 months later. The dazzling century in the 1963 semifinals won him the first of two matches for the man’s prize.

By the time he had made his international debut and scored a goal half a century ago in New Zealand at Old Trafford in 1958, Dexter had graduated as England captain. Having led the national side 30 times, he embarked on an exhausting five-month tour of the Indian subcontinent in the winter of 1961-2. The captain’s care did little to reduce his appetite. Against Pakistan in Karachi, he shared 188th place with Peter Parfitt and reached the best place in his career in 205. In a few short years, he served as England captain against Australia, India, New Zealand, Pakistan and the West Indies. However, players sometimes found his captain eccentric and often inflexible. He decides on the game plan and sticks to it. As former England opening bowler Fred Rumsey wrote in his 2019 autobiography, when he was good, he was fantastic; when he was bad, he was just awful.

As a test competitor, Dexter first became full-fledged in two centuries and an average of 65 years in the West Indies in 1960. Among other major innings was the 180 in Edgbaston in 1961 and an even more significant 174, an eight-hour run at Old Trafford in 1964, both rescuing England against Australia. Perhaps more typical was his brilliant hit 76 against Australia at Old Trafford in 1961 and fast ball 70 when he was faced with a frightening West Indian momentum attack by Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith in 1963. One ball ahead, four results still possible. Twelve months earlier against Pakistan in Oval, he had scored 172 points on a record-high second 248 football stand with Colin Cowdrey.

At dinner at Checkers with Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, Dexter was once told in some circles as a possible new leader of the troubled Conservative Party. In the autumn 1964 election, he turned down the opportunity to lead an English cricket team on their tour of South Africa, and was persuaded to stand as a potential Conservative candidate in Cardiff’s South East constituency. His opponent was James Callaghan, then Shadow Chancellor. Although voters kept him a little aloof, the seated MP increased his majority by 6,973, yet he voted 22,288 votes. Although Callaghan became Chancellor of the Treasury and eventually Prime Minister, Dexter himself flew to South Africa to join the English team.

His career as a player ended effectively in 1965 due to a strange accident. On the way home from an advertising mission with a champagne house, his beloved Jaguar ran out of gas. As he tried to push it out of the way, the car turned back and badly crushed his leg. Although he later returned to the Sussex side and scored 203, winning two other Test Masters against Australia, he had decided at the time that there were other challenges ahead. Particularly successful in bridging the gap at the end of the era of amateur professionals, from 1956 to 1970, a total of 327 first-class appearances, he made 21,150 runs and took 419 throws. He dominated England in 30 of his 62 test matches, and his total of 4,502 runs included nine centuries, while his bowling claimed 66 goals.

Life outside of cricket proved to be richer than for many, Dexter became a newspaper columnist and began broadcasting to the BBC. Taught by Douglas Bader to fly, he wouldn’t have thought he would jump over the canal on the rest day of the test match to compete in Longchamp. When he was ordered in 1970 to cover an English cricket tour in Australia with his wife and young family, he flew his small Piper Aztec plane there. Getting lost in Indonesia lasted more than a month. He was one of Britain’s finest amateur golfers and won the Prince of Wales Open Deal, twice won the prestigious Oxford and Cambridge President Putter and was on the Walker Cup nominee. One year, he didn’t make it to the Open in a single shot after he had hit the beat in the 18th game.

As a writer, alongside two athletically co-written thrillers, there are volumes of both golf and cricket that are typically straightforward and illustrative. The pious pastor, who lived a happy home life, Lloyds as Dexter, fortunately got out just in time. His best business decision was to create Deloitte Ratings, a points allocation system for individual performances that he later sold to the International Cricket Council. Although his appointment in 1989 as the first recruited chairman of the British electorate still became a brutal encounter, yet his delightful 2020 autobiography, 85 Not out, reveals that he was a tireless enthusiast of the game, whose unique abilities helped define it. Here he writes again while playing with Joie de vivre.

He married model Susan Longfield in 1959. She survives him along with a son and daughter.

Ted Dexter, cricket, golfer and businessman, born May 15, 1935, died August 25, 2021