Colin Cowdrey
Michael Colin Cowdrey, Baron Cowdrey of Tonbridge, (24 December 19324 December 2000) was an English first-class cricketer who played for Oxford University (1952–1954), Kent County Cricket Club (1950–1976) and England (1954–1975). Universally known as Colin Cowdrey, he "delighted crowds throughout the world with his style and elegance", and was the first cricketer to play 100 Test matches, celebrating the occasion with 104 against Australia in 1968. In all he played 114 Tests, making 7,624 runs at an average of 44.06, overtaking Wally Hammond as the most prolific Test batsman, and taking 120 catches as a fielder, breaking another Hammond record. Cowdrey made 22 Test centuries (an England record until 2013) and was the first batsman to make centuries against the six other Test playing countries of his era; Australia, South Africa, the West Indies, New Zealand, India and Pakistan, making hundreds against them all both home and away. He toured Australia six times in 1954–55, 1958–59, 1962–63, 1965–66, 1970–71 and 1974–75, equalling Colin Blythe's record, and in his last Test fans hung out a banner 'M.C.G. FANS THANK COLIN – 6 TOURS'.
Colin Cowdrey
Cowdrey became unaccountably obsessed with defence. His introspective nature made him over-receptive to sterile theory, such as playing with the pad; and lack of self-confidence prevented him from breaking out of his chains. "There were moments," wrote Alan Ross after watching him bat against South Africa at Cape Town in 1957, "when one wanted to send him out a double Scotch and instruct him to take the cotton wool off his bat and really hit it". 
The generosity of the white South African hosts towards the MCC team was almost their undoing Cowdrey remembering "If we were not actually killed by kindness we were certainly reduced to something well short of the fitness that a Test team must maintain ... Our standards dropped alarmingly. It was not fatal at the time for in 1956 South Africa did not have the cricketing resources to expose our indulgence". It was enough to turn a 2–0 lead for the tourists into a 2–2 draw against Clive van Ryneveld's energetic team. The all-rounder Trevor Bailey opened the innings with Peterson and Cowdrey returned to batting at number 5, where he made 331 runs (33.10). He made 59 and took three catches in the First Test at the New Wanderers in Johannesburg and made his second Test century – 101 in 369 minutes – in the Second at Cape Town, which England won by an innings, and batted for 200 minutes making 55 in the second innings of the Fourth back at Johannesburg when Hugh Tayfield took 9/113 in South Africa's 17 run win.