Facing up: Ted Dexter

SIMON HUGHES in conversation with his old friend Ted Dexter

The Hughes and the Dexters have been closely acquainted for 50 years. Both families lived in Ealing and attended the same church, St Matthews on Ealing Common. Ted and his wife Susan were stalwarts of the parish as were my parents and sister Bettany.

They were forced to endure my organ playing when I had the ‘job’ as organist and choirmaster in my late teens. His father-in-law Tom Longfield, who played for Kent and captained Bengal, had a flat near the church and used to invite us all over for drinks after our traditional Boxing Day hockey match on the common.

Ted first took an interest in my cricket when I was 11 giving me a few tips about my run-up and often offering advice when I turned pro. We always had good conversations about the game. He helped out in my benefit year. When he turned 70 I arranged with the Daily Telegraph to take him back to where he was brought up in Italy on the banks of Lake Como.

It was a fascinating insight into what must have been the most idyllic childhood. He makes nostalgic references to our trip in his autobiography Ted Dexter 85 not out published this month. We still meet once a year during the Edgbaston Test to discuss the game over a curry

You had an itinerant upbringing. Was it that which made you such an independent character?

It must have had an effect. We didn’t have a settled home until after the War and I spent much of my childhood shuttling between various houses and schools. It probably made me quite resilient. Going to a new school is never fun and I had to buckle down and fight my corner though I always had big brother John around which was a great help.

Outside school I didn’t have a friend in the world of my own age. But the summer holidays at the Italian lakeside were absolutely wonderful. My brother and I just swam, sailed and played tennis and golf almost every day.

You were rather like AB de Villiers as a kid – with tremendous talent at several different sports. Do you think a diverse sporting background is an advantage?

I think it’s important. De Villiers could have played any of tennis, cricket, rugby or golf at a high level. I was probably the same. A lot of young England cricketers now get locked into the cricket system once they show some aptitude and don’t get the chance to play much other sport. I’m not sure that’s good for your independent thinking or skill development.

How first played cricket at prep school. How did you get into golf?

The day the summer holidays started, cricket finished and I could play golf and tennis to my heart’s delight. By chance there was this old golf pro living near the then defunct golf course on the slopes of Lake Como.

My dad and his friends paid the local farmer to scythe down the long grass from a few holes and the course was slowly brought back to life. My dad used to give this old pro a few lire to teach us how to play golf. I played all my early golf with a professional. He showed us a few tricks of the trade and by the time I was 15 I was pretty good.

Geoff Boycott recently suggested to me that because there were only a few really brilliant golfers in the 1960s he could have won a major tournament or two if he’d taken up the game instead of cricket. Does that apply to you too?

Gary Player thought so. He walked into Sunningdale golf club one day and he said “Where’s my friend Ted Dexter? He’s the only amateur I’ve played with who could have won the Open Championship. He’s got the best amateur golf swing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

When we played against each other at Wentworth he got a lucky half when holed a 10-footer on the last. He forgot he was supposed to give me six shots! I was very long off the tee. I hit it miles past him. But golf is such an intense, mental game. With batting, there is the difficult first bit and you’ve got to get yourself going.

But after that it’s just a pleasure and you’ve got other team members to help you. In golf you’re going along very nicely and then something goes wrong and you get gripped by a sort of terror. The game goes from fairly easy to impossible. I don’t think I would have handled that very well. Golf can go from the sublime to the ridiculous.

How did you end up being called Lord Ted and did it annoy you?

It actually started when I was flown out to Australia late in 1959 and I gave an interview to a young reporter from the Adelaide evening paper. The headline the next day said: ‘The man from Cambridge with the Oxford accent’.

I suppose I also betrayed slightly aristocratic tendencies when during the interview I flicked a fly out of my tea and just carried on talking. The people who used the Lord Ted nickname the most were the London taxi drivers. Even 20 years later they’d pull up and call out – “Hey Lord Ted how you getting on mate?” I enjoyed it. There was nothing malicious in it.

You say in the book that the greatest influence on your batting was the Fenner’s groundsman (former Cambridgeshire captain) Cyril Coote who taught you to play off the back foot.

That was the making of me. “You are an excellent front-foot player, he said. “But I’ve watched them all come and go and if you want to play for England you’ve got to play off both feet. If you come up to Fenner’s in the early morning for half an hour I’ll teach you.”

There was a young Australian player there called Ian McLachlan and he came as well and we threw bouncers at each other and learned how to move and Cyril showed us the basic backfoot positions. It was absolutely vital. Eventually I could hit the ball through the covers as hard off the backfoot as I could off the front.

I was watching Zak Crawley bat recently. He doesn’t make a move back – nobody does any more – but he held his position so well that he could hit the ball on the rise. He is a terrific find. Not many tall players have ever got anywhere. The best was Graeme Pollock. He didn’t play back but he held his position so well.

Crawley was very impressive. He’s better than half the other guys. They have worked their way into the team and they value their wickets but those two openers are painful to watch. People don’t seem to understand that if you stay sideways you can play forward and back.

If you are front on you can’t get the front foot forward or over to the offside. One of my old coaches used to say to some players: “We professional cricketers move our feet as in a narrow bath. You sir appear to have your feet in a pisspot!”

You mention that your first sighting of Frank Worrell walking out to bat at Fenner’s made a powerful impression on you.

Wow, what a figure. There were hardly any black people about in those days. I’d never seen West Indies play. They arrived at Cambridge and there was I down at fine-leg and this wonderful man walked out to bat like he owned the place.

Very handsome, immaculate, magnificent, everything he did was beautiful. It was a great entrance and I aspired then and there to emulate the aura he created. Sadly I don’t believe I ever came close. 

How did you end up playing for Sussex?

I could play for any county because I was born in Italy. Worcester and Warwickshire were after me. But [Sussex captain] Robin Marlar rang up and said “There’s a long history of links between Cambridge University and Sussex – it’s a great place to play – and you can still live at home in London.”

It was perfect for me. I was newly married and we had a little flat in Pimlico. Every morning I’d walk down to Victoria station and I had my own special corner seat in first class on the Brighton Belle. “Ah Mr Dexter your newspaper is at your table,” the guard would say, “and I presume you’ll have your usual cooked breakfast?”

I’d do the crossword and I would arrive at Hove at 10.15 and the game didn’t start til 11.30. And then in the evening it was just as easy to get home again.

It was sometimes remarked that when you were a mere player you sometimes looked distracted. Did you need captaincy to keep you engaged?

I liked the chess-like subtleties of captaincy. People said I had more theories than Darwin. But my captaincy record stands up to anybody – in 1960 my first year captaining Sussex we were fourth in the Championship, we’d always been in the lower reaches before.

We won the first two one-day Gillette Cups (1963 and ’64). In Tests we won nine matches and three series with me in charge and held the excellent 1962/63 Australians to a drawn series down under. I scored more runs in that series [481] than any other captain in Australia and that record still stands. I’m quite proud of that.

Was that 70 you made at Lord’s against West Indies in 1963 [in 80 minutes off 70 balls coming in at 2-1] your finest innings, or the hundred in Barbados?

I don’t think I rate either of those innings as my best. They didn’t really get us anywhere. Lord’s was special because those two, Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith, were so dominant and one or two players made a poor fist of playing against them. I knew I could look after myself.

It wasn’t new for me to take on quick bowling but in those circumstances on that occasion, at Lord’s when I was captain and England looked like they were going downhill fast it stood out. There was a poem written about it – “When the Colosseum came to Lord’s.”

I was annoyed when I got out [lbw Sobers]. It was a marginal decision. I would have definitely reviewed it. I’ve always been keen on DRS. There used to be such awful blunders which changed the whole course of the game.

You say you were never hit on the head in your career?

It was all down to that early training. Good footwork. You were often judged then as a batsman on how ‘narrow’ you were. Which meant staying sideways. Kenny Barrington was incredibly talented when the ball came down but he chose to walk across behind the ball and he became a great big target and you can’t move out the way if you’re front on.

He took such a pasting from Griffith. I think that was very possibly a reason for his early death because he got hit on the body so often. I took a few in the ribs but when we started off nobody wore a thigh pad. That was seen as sissy. When I went to West Indies I soon learned to double a towel over and hang it over my jock strap. 

You retired from playing (initially) in 1965. What things that you’ve achieved since have given you the most satisfaction?

The two most were the player rankings [now the ICC rankings] and getting the data – scores, match situation etc – on the TV screen. It was a joke before – you could only see half a scoreboard. It was clear to me that ranking players by their averages only told half the story.

I phoned The Cricketer to ask if they had ever published anything about cricket and computers. They pointed me to an article written by Rob Eastaway from Deloittes in the August 1986 edition about a programme devised by him and his friend Gordon Vince.

I met them both and out of that was born the Deloittes Player rankings. Those two guys are still doing it for the ICC. And they’ve expanded it all into all formats.

Working for the Sunday Mirror in 1972 you got a major scoop about ball tampering which effectively ended Bob Massie’s career.

Bloody right. Cheating bastards. They were squishing clear lip-ice into their trousers and using it to shine the ball.

He was bowling around the wicket to left-handers and the ball was started about fourth slip and slicing the batsman in half. [Massie took 16 wickets in the match which was his Test debut.] It was Tony Greig who phoned me and told me about it. We soon put a stop to it. [Massie took only 15 wickets in his next five Tests, was dropped and never heard of again.] 

How do you look back on your time as chairman of selectors?

I was chairman of the England committee. I chaired the meetings but the captain and manager selected the team. I was there mainly to ensure there is some coherent direction in selection. I introduced player contracts with the board – the present generation should be pretty thankful to me for that.

We looked at pay structures, planning, long-term strategy. They’re earning proper money now and the organisation’s much better. It’s a pity the England players don’t play county cricket. But it’s inevitable.

How would you bowl to Steve Smith and what’s Joe Root’s problem?

Smith hits the ball off the stumps with incredible ease but there are never enough fielders there! I’d bowl straight to him and see where he hits it and then probably put six men on the legside.

It’s a bit like bowling at [South Africa’s] Graeme Smith. He used to shovel everything to the legside and everyone would bowl wider and then he would sort of flat bat it through the offside. I said to Andrew Strauss when he was captain – next time he comes into bat set a standard field then as he’s about to settle move another fielder onto the legside.

Then let him settle and move another fielder onto the legside and bowl staright! I was actually watching and he did do it. And he shovelled a few to the legside and he couldn’t get off strike and then he got mixed up in his head and got bowled. And he barely got 30 again against us.

Joe Root has got to keep his right foot parallel with the batting crease and hold his position. He’s turning square on and he thinks he’s moving his feet but he’s not.

They go pitter-patter and end up in the same place. And then he gets one that moves a bit and he’s out. Last 20 Test matches he’s averaging a bit over 30 [actually 38]. It’s a crying shame.

You’ve been closely associated with gambling in your life. Was it ever a real problem?

It started at school – I was the local bookmaker! I’ve still got a little diary which has two and sixpence and three and thruppence written in it although I wasn’t sure if I owed it to them or they owed it to me. It was a bit of a pest in my life. I used to punt like hell.

The Reverend David Sheppard was a help in the early days when my wife Susan was worrying about it. He made some very sensible comments – he said just try easing off. That was helpful. Recently I engaged the services of an addiction specialist who happens to know me very well.

I wanted to know to what an extent I was addict. He said no I wasn’t. He gave me a clean bill of health. Now I allow myself one bet a year. Of course my one bet always wins. That’s just to tease me to get me going again. But I’m clean.

As an innovator yourself you must enjoy the IPL?

No. I couldn’t care less who wins. I can only watch one-day cricket if it’s England or Sussex playing in a final and then I’m enthralled. But I’m old and stupid and I don’t know who these guys are or what they do. The one lovely thing about T20 is the wrist-spinner is so important.

You’d think they’d have been the first to be drummed out and yet there they are a very important part of the show. Of course, if I was a young player I’d definitely play in the IPL. Getting paid millions for games lasting a few hours! If I played a few years of IPL and looked after my money I’d be set for life.

Super over

Holiday destination? Menaggio and Cadenabbia on the slopes of Lake Como

Dream dunner party line-up? My father Ralph, Brian Statham – ‘George’ was a real salt of the earth bloke. He’d drink me out of cans of lager. Mark Nicholas – marvellous chap

What book would you take on holiday? One of the Jack Reacher books by Lee Child

What musical event would you choose? La Boheme. Operatic voices are just amazing.

Batsman you most like watching? Zak Crawley.

All Ted Dexter’s proceeds from the book are being donated to the MCC foundation