Obituaries index: A-E

Abdul Kadir, who died in Karachi on March 12, 2002, aged 57, was a Test wicket-keeper who took no catches but made his mark with the bat. One of six new players picked by Pakistan for the one-off Test against Australia at Karachi in October 1964, the 20-year-old Kadir combined with his fellow-debutant "Billy" Ibadulla to add 249, the best at the time for any Pakistan wicket and a first-wicket record until 1997-98. Ibadulla made 166, Kadir was run out for 95. His stumping of Tom Veivers two days later would remain his only Test dismissal. When the sides met again at Melbourne five weeks later, Kadir's thumb was broken as he edged Graham McKenzie to slip in the first over. In the second innings he batted at No. 7 and made 35 in a 46-run stand with his captain, Hanif Mohammad, who was having quite a match - as well as scoring 104 and 93, he kept wicket in Kadir's place and took five catches. By the time Pakistan moved on to New Zealand, Naushad Ali was wearing the gloves. Kadir played his next, and last, two Tests as a batsman, scoring 46 and nought and then, back as opener, 12 and 58 (in five and a quarter hours). In 36 first-class games over 11 seasons he scored 1,523 runs at 28.73 with one century: 114 for Karachi Whites against Karachi Blues in the 1963-64 Quaid-e-Azam final. He finished with 46 catches and 13 stumpings.

Afaq Hussain died in Karachi on February 25, 2002, aged 62. A glance at his first-class record suggests that this quickish off-spinner might have played more than two Tests. In 67 games between 1957-58 and 1973-74, he took ten wickets in a match five times. However, competition was fierce among the twirly merchants at a time when Pakistan's faster bowlers were beginning to carry an equal share of the workload. In England in 1962 Afaq went weeks without a game, playing six first-class matches out of 29 and taking only 13 wickets at 43.61, and in Australia and New Zealand in 1964- 65 he played only five games out of 14 - though one was the Test at Melbourne, where he failed to take a wicket. In fact, his only Test victim was Ted Dexter in 1961-62, out hit wicket at Lahore in his first Test as England captain. Afaq had won his Test place with six for 89 for the Governor's XI against MCC on a mud-caked pitch, bare of grass, at Lyallpur. He could bat, too, as he showed with 33 not out in the Lahore Test. In the next season's Quaid-e-Azam final, going in at No. 11 for Karachi A against Karachi B, he made 87 and put on the first three-figure stand for the last wicket in Pakistan with Wallis Mathias. Afaq toured England again in 1963 with the PIA-sponsored Pakistan Eaglets and played most of his later first-class cricket for PIA. In all, he took 214 wickets at 19.42, including best figures of eight for 108 for Karachi University against Railways-Quetta in 1960-61, and scored 1,448 runs at 24.54. His one century was 122 not out in 1969-70 for PIA against Lahore Blues at the Bagh-e-Jinnah in Lahore. He held 52 catches.

Antonio (later Howard), Peggy, who died in Melbourne on January 11, 2002, aged 84, played in Australia's first six women's Tests. Her attacking leg-spin bowling, with its tantalising flight and variations of off-breaks, top-spin and an occasional googly, brought selection for Victoria at 15 and soon led her to be dubbed "the girl Grimmett". Two years later she was taking the field against England in the first women's Test, at Brisbane in December 1934, having staked her claim with match figures of ten for 48 in England's game with Victoria. When she had the opener Betty Snowball caught for 15, Peggy Antonio became Australia's first female wicket-taker. In the Third Test at the MCG she thrilled her local supporters by taking six for 49 in the first innings. Touring England in 1937, she was at the top of her form. She spun Australia to victory in the opening Test at Northampton with six for 51 and three for 40, and finished the series with 19 wickets at 11.15. She also opened the batting in the first two Tests, then helped ensure that the series would be drawn 1-1 with her Test-best 37 at The Oval. Against Kent she hit an unbeaten 103 and at 20 she had the cricket world at her feet. Instead she gave the game away, complaining that cricket was becoming too relentless to be enjoyable. She married during the war and became matriarch of a large family.

Anwar Hussain died in Lahore on October 9, 2002, aged 82. It was 50 years to the month since he had played in Pakistan's first Test, at Delhi in 1952-53. However, his four games in that series against India realised only 42 runs and one wicket and he never represented Pakistan again. Anwar Hussain Khokar faced the first ball bowled in first-class cricket in Pakistan, though he wouldn't have been aware of that when he opened for Sind against West Punjab at Lahore in December 1947 - it was the 1990s before the match was reckoned to warrant first-class status. He had made his debut at 20 for the Muslims against The Rest in the 1940-41 Pentangular and went on to play for Northern India and Bombay in the Ranji Trophy, batting in the top half of the order and bowling fast-medium. He could also keep wicket in an emergency.

After Partition, Anwar lived in Karachi. Captaining Sind against the 1948-49 West Indians, he produced two career-bests, four for 66 and a match-saving 81, whereupon he was selected for the unofficial Test in Lahore. He went to Ceylon that same season, opening the bowling in the "Tests", but somehow his performances at this level rarely reached expectations. However, his steadfast 48 against MCC at Karachi in December 1951 did his young country great service: in adding 83 with his captain, A. H. Kardar, he took Pakistan to the brink of a victory that helped secure Test status the following July. Anwar's reward was the vice-captaincy for the tour of India. In 1954-55 he captained Karachi to the final of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy. It should have been a memorable swansong. Instead he was replaced as captain by the 20-year-old Hanif Mohammad, who along with his brothers Wazir and Raees hit a hundred in Karachi's nine-wicket victory over Combined Services. Anwar Hussain's time had passed. In 45 games he scored 1,511 runs at 26.98 and took 36 wickets at 36.02.

Avery, Albert George, who died of leukaemia in Bristol on April 18, 2002, aged 84, was Gloucestershire's first-team scorer from 1971 to 1987 before becoming their archivist. In 1994 he helped establish the museum at the county ground. "Bert the Book" they called him when he was first appointed, to distinguish him from "Bert the Boot", the dressing-room attendant. The sobriquet could just as easily have come from the excellence of his scorebooks. Bert Avery's copperplate handwriting, perfected over his 40 years with the Shell oil company, was legendary on the county circuit. Among the feats it recorded were Mike Procter twice achieving a hundred and hat-trick in the same match, one of which incorporated his two lbw hat-tricks, and the four occasions on which Zaheer Abbas hit a double-hundred and hundred in a match. "He was respected by everyone for his humour, ability and compassion," the Test umpire David Shepherd said in his funeral address. "He would help anyone who needed it." Ball, Thomas Edward, who died in Cairns on January 13, 2002, aged 80, was a train driver who opened the bowling for Queensland in three Sheffield Shield games in 1947. WCAA.

Beaumont, Leonard, died in Nottingham on July 22, 2002, aged 87. Len Beaumont joined the Nottinghamshire staff in 1981, following his retirement as a government contracts officer for the electronics firm Ericsson, and shared the first- and second-team scoring with Les Tomlinson until becoming first-team scorer from 1987 to 1993. He also kept the England book at Trent Bridge. He had been a better-than-average club cricketer, captaining Nottinghamshire Amateur League and Cricket Association sides, and obtained an MCC Advanced Coaching Certificate which led to coaching at Trent Bridge. A wing-half or inside forward, Len Beaumont played League football for Huddersfield Town, Portsmouth and Nottingham Forest. His son, David, described in Wisden as "the cricketing policeman from Nottingham", won a Cambridge Blue in 1978.

Bell, William, who died in Auckland on July 23, 2002, aged 70, played two Tests for New Zealand in South Africa in 1953-54. He bowled leg-spin and came into the reckoning for that tour because Alex Moir was out of favour with the selectors. "Players like Bell," wrote the former Auckland leg-spinner Raoul Garrard, "have apparently been chosen only because we must have bowlers of their type." At the time Bill Bell had taken only 11 wickets in his five games for Canterbury and Auckland. When he took four for 31 against Eastern Province early in the tour, he looked worth the punt. His control was good and both his leg-break and googly turned sharply. That return, however, would be his best in a 33-game career that ran from 1949-50 to 1958-59, with 44 wickets at 40.52 and 170 runs at an average (helped by not-outs) of 10.00. His Tests were at Cape Town and Port Elizabeth; his two wickets cost 235 runs. Benjamin, Sunil, died in Jaipur on November 10, 2002, aged 56, following a heart attack. He became the first Indian wicket-keeper to take seven dismissals in an innings with six catches and a stumping for Central Zone against North Zone at Bombay in the 1973-74 Duleep Trophy final. His record was equalled by Vidarbha's Sadashiv Iyer in 1997-98. In 70 first-class games between 1966-67 and 1981-82, mostly for Rajasthan in the Ranji Trophy, Benjamin collected 103 catches, 23 stumpings and 2,384 runs at 25.09.

Birley, Sir Derek, died in Johannesburg on May 14, 2002, aged 75. His 1979 book, The Willow Wand: Some Cricket Myths Explored, was applauded by those who relished what his fellow author Eric Midwinter called "its iconoclastic demolition of cricket's sentimental fallacies". Traditionalists reached for their Cardus, himself one of Birley's more obvious suspects. Following his retirement in 1991 as vice-chancellor of the University of Ulster, which he had built from a coalition of small teacher-training colleges into a five-campus establishment, Birley wrote Sport and the Making of Britain, Land of Sport and Glory, and Playing the Game before specialising again with A Social History of Cricket. Although missing the originality of Willow Wand, it was William Hill Sports Book of the Year 1999 and won the Cricket Society's Literary Award.

Boddington, Myles Alan, who died in Burford on February 14, 2002, aged 77, played for the RAF against Worcestershire in 1946, his sole first-class game. Given his reputation at Rugby as "a fast bowler of height and hostility", which earned him selection for the Lord's Schools in 1942 and 1943, there was some interest in his county debut. Unfortunately, opening the attack, he bowled only three overs before pulling up injured. His left-handed batting produced 23 lower-order runs in the second innings after a duck in the first. In 1941, he had played in Rugby's centenary match to mark MCC's first fixture at the school, a visit celebrated in Thomas Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days. Like Hughes, Myles Boddington captained Rugby in his final year. His father, Robert, was a wicket-keeper who played 52 times for Lancashire.

Bremner, Colin David, who died in Canberra on June 13, 2002, aged 82, was a stylish wicket-keeper who played for the Dominions against England at Lord's in 1945 and stumped Wally Hammond twice - for a hundred in each innings. WCAA. Brindle, Reginald Gordon, who died in Newton-le-Willows on March 16, 1998, aged 72, spent two summers on the Warwickshire staff from 1948 and played against Combined Services in 1949. A right-handed batsman from Warrington, he compiled attractive innings of 42 and 32 to confirm his potential, but Warwickshire's Championship aspirations, fulfilled in 1950, were being built around a cadre of experienced players. Brindle was not given another chance and returned north to score heavily in Merseyside club cricket.

Brittenden, Richard Trevor, MBE, died in Christchurch on June 10, 2002, aged 82. For as long as many could remember, he had been New Zealand's foremost cricket writer. The game, he once said, was his mistress and he had been passionate about it since his youth. Dick Brittenden joined the Christchurch Press in 1938 and, except during war service as a flying officer with the RNZAF, remained with the paper until his retirement in 1984; he was its sports editor from 1955. He covered New Zealand's 1953-54 tour of South Africa - relived vividly in his first book, Silver Fern on the Veld - and four tours of England, two of which took in India and Pakistan. At first opposed to the Packer revolution of the 1970s, he came round to it because he felt that cricketers benefited. But he warned his countrymen against playing just for money: "The public's interest in our team's performances will diminish. We won't be a plucky little nation fighting the big guys any more." Brittenden was also managing editor of the New Zealand Cricketer from its inception in 1967 to 1973, and for a time edited its successor, the Cricket Player, as well as contributing for more than 30 years to Wisden and The Cricketer. His first Wisden commission was the profile of Dick Motz for the Five Cricketers of the Year in 1966. The press box at Jade Stadium in Christchurch, formerly Lancaster Park, was named after him (he reported rugby there too), while the approach to the 17th green at Waitikiri Golf Club has been known as the Brittenden bypass ever since he holed it in one.

Clarke, Donald Barry, died in Johannesburg on December 29, 2002, aged 69. His prodigious line- and goal-kicking while fullback for the New Zealand All-Blacks made Don Clarke a rugby legend and won him the nickname "The Boot". And when he wasn't kicking balls 50, even 60 yards, he bowled them pretty quickly over 22. Months before he caught the nation's eye by helping Waikato lift the Ranfurly Shield, New Zealand's premier rugby trophy, the 17-year-old Clarke opened the bowling for Auckland in the Plunket Shield. At that age, selection for a metropolitan province was a significant achievement for a country boy. Standing 6ft 2in and powerfully built, he was made for fast-medium bowling. His smooth, athletic action lent itself to sustained spells and he could move the ball about disconcertingly.

After Northern Districts entered the Plunket Shield in 1956-57, he represented them until 1962-63, when they won the competition for the first time and he became one of the few to play for winning teams in both the Plunket and Ranfurly Shield. His 20 wickets that season included a career-best eight for 37 in 22.3 overs off the reel to dismiss Central Districts for 71 at Wanganui, following a career-best 47 in Northern's first innings. Only the last of his eight wickets was bowled. Several days later Clarke returned a creditable three for 82 in 27 overs when Wellington's John Reid smashed a world-record 15 sixes while hurtling to 296 out of 422. One of the three off Clarke, little more than a fly-swat at a beamer, smashed into a Basin Reserve floodlight tower with such force that those present still testify to the tuning-fork twang as leather struck steel. The next summer Clarke was in the British Isles and France with the All-Blacks. After that a serious knee injury, not helped by supporting some 17 stones, put paid to his first-class cricket. He had played 27 games, taking 117 wickets at 21.14 and scored 369 runs at 10.54. One of his brothers, Doug, played six times for Northern Districts, while there was one representative rugby game in which all five Clarke brothers turned out together for Waikato. Don Clarke moved to South Africa in the 1970s and set up a tree-felling business.

Coats, James, who died in Brisbane on June 8, 2002, aged 88, played all three games on Queensland's southern tour in 1937-38 but was unable to improve on the brisk 46 he made against Victoria on debut, going in at No. 3 and top-scoring in the second innings. All told he scored 127 runs at 21.17 and was relegated to twelfth man when the team returned to Brisbane.

Cooper, Alfred, who died on October 6, 2002, aged 96, made a substantial contribution to Wiltshire cricket at all levels while the county's chairman, especially in the years when the Minor Counties were re-establishing themselves after World War II. David Richards, a former Wiltshire captain, remembered him as generous to "amateurs and artisans alike, many of us experiencing difficulty in finding the means to play". After retiring as chairman, Cooper was president of Wiltshire for 15 years until 1998. He was active with Swindon CC as player and later committe-man from 1928, having returned to the area to run the family scrap-metal business. At the time of his death he was described as "the doyen of the modern metals recycling industry".

Cotton, Edward Kenneth, who died in Sydney on March 26, 2002, aged 74, had a few games for New South Wales in the 1950s as an all-rounder. Later, as coach of NSW Under-19s, Ted Cotton helped bring on several star players, including the Waugh twins, Mark Taylor, Adam Gilchrist and Michael Slater. WCAA.

Cristofani, Desmond Robert, died in Canberra on August 22, 2002, aged 81. It was 57 years to the day since his rousing 110 not out for Australia in the last of the 1945 "Victory Tests" against England. E. W. Swanton used it at the end of his 1946 Wisden article, "Cricket Under the Japs", recalling how his first walk as a free man for three years had taken him to a Thai village. "In the little café our hosts politely turned on the English programme. Yes, we were at Old Trafford, and a gentleman called Cristofani was getting a hundred..." It was some hundred, accounting for all but 31 of the 141 scored after he went in with Australia 69 for six in their second innings on a damp surface drying in brilliant sunshine. Bob Cristofani added 95 in even time with Graham Williams (12) for the ninth wicket; his 14 boundaries included a hooked six off George Pope on to the pavilion terraces. The day before he had finished with five for 55, giving the England batsmen as much trouble with his leg-breaks and googlies as he had when taking four for 43 and five for 49 at Lord's in the third "Test".

The previous year, as a 23-year-old pilot officer, Cristofani had been one of many Australian first-grade cricketers who responded to a circular sent to every RAF base by those putting together the summer's RAAF teams. He had played once for New South Wales, against Queensland at Brisbane in December 1941 - the last inter-state game before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor put a stop to first-class cricket for four years. His well-flighted leg-spinners, varying from medium-pace to slow, quickly made an impact in 1944, accounting for four Test players in Charles Barnett, Cyril Washbrook, Bob Wyatt and New Zealand's Ken James when he took seven for 39 in the defeat of the RAF at Lord's. A week later he was back, playing for Australia against The Rest and England over Whitsun weekend. After the RAAF's captain, Keith Carmody, was shot down off the Dutch coast and taken prisoner - a reminder that cricket was merely a welcome distraction from the real business at hand - Cristofani shared the captaincy with Stan Sismey, a fellow New South Welshman. Against New Zealand Services at Maidstone, he led a recovery from 49 for five with a hard-hitting 76, then took nine for ten to skittle the opposition for 45.

Performances such as these had some Australians thinking they had found another Clarrie Grimmett. The cricket writer Dick Whitington, a team-mate in the 1945 Australian Services side, reckoned Cristofani's Old Trafford century was "one in which even Victor Trumper could have taken pride". But his serious cricketing days were almost over. After playing in England, India and Australia with the Services side, he turned out only twice for New South Wales when Shield cricket resumed in 1946-47. His long-term future lay with Australia's Department of Trade, with which he held several overseas postings. In 18 first-class games he scored 747 runs at 26.75 and took 48 wickets at 32.93; Old Trafford and Lord's witnessed his best performances.