Colin Cowdrey, the former Kent and England batsman, who died on December 5th aged 67, was the first cricketer to gain 100 Test caps, and one of the game's enigmas.
A right-hander of an elegance matched only by Tom Graveney among his contemporaries, and courageous as they come, he made 42,719 first-class runs, 7,624 of them in 114 Tests at an average of 44.06, with 22 of his 107 centuries coming in them. He made a 1,000 runs in a season 27 times, a tally surpassed only by W.G. Grace and Frank Woolley.
He was adept on front or back foot, easing the ball to the boundary rather than belting it - "hard enough for four is hard enough", he would say. He could swivel to pull the fastest bowlers, and developed a paddle sweep from an upright stance to fine leg off the spinners. His comfortable bulk belied an agility that made him a top-class slip fielder, and his 120 catches, a world Test record at the time, has been exceeded since by only five other cricketers.
As well as leading Kent from 1957 to 1971, Colin Cowdrey also captained England on 27 occasions, but in five different stints, having had trouble convincing the selectors he had the necessary steel or drive and dynamism for the job. It was said that he was too sensitive and too fond of cricketers to want to upset them with uncomfortable decisions.
He was awarded the CBE in 1972, knighted 20 years later and elevated to the peerage, as Baron Cowdrey of Tonbridge, in 1997.
Colin Cowdrey was a complex character given to passages where his play reached sublime levels, but then subject to such bemusing introspection that ordinary journeymen county bowlers could be made to seem world-beaters. The game was either incredibly simple or bafflingly complex, depending on his mood.
He was not universally popular within the game, despite a beaming benevolent exterior, innate kindliness and chivalry towards his opponents, he had his enemies. Many mistrusted him, for example, for his ethics of "walking" for obvious decisions, and then not doing so for the less obvious, in the hope that his reputation would fool the umpire, although he was by no means alone in this gamesmanship.
Later in life, his connection with cricket continued, at first as president of the MCC during the club's bicentenary in 1987, and then as president of the International Cricket Council, potentially the most powerful administrative position in the sport. During his time with the ICC he introduced an international code of conduct and match referees to help clean up the tarnished image of the game, and oversaw the reintroduction of South Africa to international cricket.
He was, however, regarded as indecisive and malleable, and was pressed into allowing the decision to hold the 1996 World Cup in England to be overturned. It went to the sub-continent.
Born in Putumala, India, it seemed Colin Cowdrey was destined for the game from the moment that his cricket-mad father, a tea planter in Bangalore, gave him the initials MCC. He was regarded as an infant prodigy; his enthusiasm was said to have been fuelled by a letter he received from Jack Hobbs as a seven-year-old after winning a bat for scoring 93 in an inter-school match.
He went on to become an outstanding schools player, having been introduced to the Tonbridge first XI at the age of 13, primarily as a legspinner but working his way up to number three batsman. He was the youngest schoolboy to appear in a match at Lord's, when he made 75 and 44 and took eight wickets, and actually played for Kent while still at school, becoming its youngest ever capped player at 18.
At the age of 21 and still at Oxford, he found himself on the boat to Australia with Len Hutton's Ashes-winning side of 1954-55. His third Test, and in front of 63,000 spectators in the vast Melbourne Cricket Ground, brought his first, and, many argue, his finest Test hundred - 102 made out of a total of 191, an innings on an unreliable pitch, which rescued England from a Lindwall-Miller induced 41 for four, and set the ground for Frank Tyson to bring his side to victory. Two years on, Colin Cowdrey and Peter May compiled what was then the highest partnership for any wicket in Tests, and which remains the highest for the fourth wicket, when they added 411 together against West Indies at Edgbaston.
In 1963, as the Lord's Test against West Indies headed towards a thrilling climax, Colin Cowdrey contributed one of the game's most dramatic moments. In the second innings, he had had his left wrist fractured by a rising ball from Wes Hall. With just two balls of the match remaining, six runs needed and no further wickets in hand other than his, he reappeared, beaming, down the steps, arm in plaster, ready to face, if necessary, the final ball. His fortitude was not tested, and the match was drawn.
Early in 1968, he led England to victory in the series in the Caribbean, the last time an England captain has done so.
In 1974, at the age of 41, Colin Cowdrey enjoyed a fine season, and might have expected to tour Australia for a seventh time that winter. However, although omitted from Mike Denness's party, he received an emergency call from a side that was in the process of being worked over on fast uncompromising pitches by Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson.
Five days after arriving in Perth, and three years since he had last played a Test, he acquitted himself courageously with scores of 22 and 41, giving an astounding display of defensive batting against high pace. It was to be his last series.
The following season was to be his final one with Kent, and, six months after the battering in Australia, he marked it in the finest style by scoring 151 not out at Canterbury, as the county successfully chased 354 to beat the Australians by four wickets. It was his last century, and the grandest of hurrahs on the ground he cherished.
Colin Cowdrey married Penny Chiesman in 1956 and they had three sons and a daughter. Following their divorce in 1988, Colin Cowdrey married one of the daughters of the Duke of Norfolk, Lady Herries of Terregles, who survives him.
Michael Colin Cowdrey, Lord Cowdrey of Tonbridge: born 1932; died December 2000