DENIS COMPTON, the golden boy of English cricket who lightened the austerity of post-war Britain, has died in a London hospital aged 78.
Compton will forever be associated with the sun-drenched summer of 1947 when he scored 3,816 runs for Middlesex at an average of 90.85 and took four centuries off the visiting South Africans for good measure.
Handsome, debonair and a dazzling improviser at the crease, Compton provided both excitement and glamour to a sporting public desperate for entertainment after the grim war years.
In common with his close friends Bill Ed rich and the great Australian all-rounder Keith Miller, Compton lived life to the full.
He was known to turn up to a test match in full evening dress, his time-keeping was notoriously bad and his attention sometimes wandered in the field.
At the crease, though, Compton was all concentration and one of the finest batsmen of all time.
Blessed with extraordinary reflexes, allied to a sound technique, Compton scored 5,807 runs, including 17 centuries at an average of 50.06, during a career which stretched 20 years from 1937 to 1957.
He defied the powerful Australian side, sometimes single-handedly. during the 1940s, once memorably at Old Trafford in 1948 when he edged a ball from Ray Lindwall on to his face and retired before returning, still bleeding, to score an unbeaten 145.
Compton's flair for the unorthodox was seen at its best against the spinners, including his celebrated late sweep and an exquisite cover drive steered just past the fielders.
His only weakness was a sometimes hilarious incapacity to give a clear call when running between wickets, described once by England all-rounder Trevor Bailey as "merely the basis for negotiation".
Born in the north London suburb of Hendon on May 23rd, 1918, Compton made his England debut at the age of 19 and in 1938 became the youngest man to score a century for his country with 102 against Australia at Trent Bridge.
After serving briefly in India during the war, Compton returned to cricket and film-star status in a Britain desperate for heroes.
He became a pin-up boy with a series of haircream advertisements, scored 300 runs in 181 minutes against North-East Transvaal for the MCC touring team in South Africa and scored the winning runs when England won back the Ashes from Australia in the Coronation year of 1953.
Compton was also a talented soccer midfielder with Arsenal and played 11 wartime internationals alongside Sir Stanley Matthews and Tommy Lawton.
A knee injury hampered Compton in his later years but even after the right kneecap was removed, he was still able to give a reprise of his great days with 94 in the final test against the 1956 Australians.
