Wisden
1996

Lord Home

Lord Home

LORD HOME of The Hirsel, KT, PC, who died on Oct 9, aged 92, was the only British Prime Minister (1963-64) to play first-class cricket. As Lord Dunglass - before succeeding to the peerage he disclaimed to take up ministerial office as Sir Alec Douglas-Home - he appeared in 10 first-class matches, two of them for Middlesex, scoring 147 runs (16.33), with a highest score of 37 not out for Free Foresters against Oxford University in 1924. He also took 12 wickets (30.25), with a best return of 3 for 43 for Leveson Gower's XI against Oxford in 1926, a year in which he also played for the University without winning a Blue. In 1922 at Lord's he scored 66 and took 4 for 37 against Harrow for Eton, where he was a contemporary of Gubby Allen, who remembered him as `a distinctly good slipper, as well as a useful awayswing medium-pacer and a determined bat'.

Lord Home at the crease

He toured South America in 1926-27 with an MCC team captained by Pelham Warner and containing three future England captains in Allen, R. T. Stanyforth and J. C.White. He remained a keen club cricketer, often touring with Eton Ramblers: he was president of MCC in 1966-67. He once recalled: `When Robert Menzies was Prime Minister of Australia and I was Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister we always made sure the Commonwealth Prime Ministers met in London at the time of the Lord's Test.'

S.L.


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