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A N A P P R E C I AT I O N O F T E D D E X T E R A N D I A N T H O M S O N
A G R E AT P L AY E R A N D A N
E X T R AO R D I N A R Y H U M A N B E I N G
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Paul Weaver pays tribute to Ted Dexter, who died in 2021.
What a cricketer, what a man, what a life.” That was how The Guardian’s Matthew Engel concluded his appreciation of Ted Dexter, who died in August last year, aged 86. It seemed an appropriate way to sum up not only a great player but an extraordinary human being. It seemed fitting that Dexter was born not only in Italy but in Milan, that country’s most fashionable city, with its glitzy catwalks, haute couture stores and the home of the majestic Duomo Cathedral and Leonardo da Vinci. So he was a little special from the off, and never stopped being so throughout his long life. He wrote a thought-provoking blog almost to the end and in 2020 compiled an entertaining and quick-selling autobiography, Ted Dexter 85 Not Out. He was Edward by name and Edwardian in style for there was, in his debonair and charismatic play, more than a reminder of the golden age of cricket at the beginning of the 20th century. AC McLaren, you sense, would have approved of him. Like the classical and attacking McLaren, he dominated his crease from the moment he arrived and never looked in any trouble. Until he got out. Yet he was, in so may ways, a modern and innovative cricketer and a true Renaissance man. In 1963 and 1964 Sussex won the first two Gillette Cups under his leadership because he was the first captain to understand that limited-overs cricket was essentially a defensive game. When he stopped playing he was the brains behind the first player rankings system, sponsored by Deloitte. When he became chairman of the England selectors he played a key role in setting up central contacts, four-day county cricket and England A matches. He was also an outstanding golfer – “the best amateur player I’ve ever seen,” said Gary Player, with whom he once halved a match. When he was 85 he beat his age in a round at Sunnningdale. He played rugby to a high level and was an original newspaper columnist and TV commentator – when asked to cover England’s Ashes tour of Australia he flew there in his own light aircraft, Pommie’s Progress. He took his model wife, Susan with him, as well as his two children, The journey took five weeks. He would have been an even greater sensation
