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
When Cowdrey was five he was taken to England and attended Homefield Preparatory School, Sutton in 1938–45, where the headmaster Charles Walford instilled in him the purity of batting technique that would become Cowdrey's hallmark. Cowdrey made a century in his first game for the school, but a recount made it only 93 and Jack Hobbs sent him a letter of commiseration and a cricket bat. His parents returned to India in 1938 and because of the Second World War he did not see them again until they came back to Britain in 1945. During the holidays he stayed with relatives in Croydon and Bognor Regis, where he watched dog-fights in the Battle of Britain and on his uncle's farm near Market Bosworth.