by Arunabha Sengupta

By the Cover

The cover says a lot.

The 1965 autobiography was about a man who has gone on to live 55 years since then and is still going strong. It shows Ted Dexter, the captain of England, in his whites, watching the proceedings with semi-pensive eyes. The title was apt – Ted Dexter Declares. After his near fatal misadventures with his Jaguar, the splendid career seemed all but over. The tale of his life till then was obviously all about his own cricket, with a hurried description of his curious brush with politics, his fascination for golf and his addiction to the turf.
Edited by Clifford Mankins, the sports editor of The Observer, it started with a rather sensational description of his ‘leg-break’ under the Chiswick flyover, before going on to narrate the story of the rest of his 30-year life.

The 1995 biography Lord Ted—The Dexter Enigma, penned by Alan Lee, shows a middle-aged Dexter on the dust jacket. It is more than apparent that the photograph was deliberately handpicked to strip this fantastic sportsperson off every bit of dash and charisma. The close up of his face has him looking harried, even flustered, a man facing difficult questions.
As Dexter points out in his 2020 autobiography, the timing of that particular piece of work was suspect. Alan Lee, erstwhile “cricket correspondent for that beacon of truth, The Sun, … and later upgraded in the Murdoch stable to the chief cricket correspondent of The Times”, had indeed chosen a rather opportune moment for penning a life-story. The moment of Dexter’s rather unceremonious stepping down from the post of chairman of the England Committee at MCC. As Dexter says, he hadn’t “had a particularly good relationship with the British press in which Lee had not been a notable exception.”
The book, a fairly decent one as far as cricketing biographies go, dwelled a bit too long on the second innings of Dexter as administrator, not really pulling too many punches. Dexter says that he found several untruths in it. While it did an adequate job of covering his days as a cricketer and achieved most of what it had set out to do about his second innings as chairman of England Committee, the book missed out several further facets of the Dexter story.
The low hanging fruits were perhaps too enticing.

The 2020 biography of Lord Ted covers the story of the long life of Dexter in its entirety. He calls it 85 Not Out, assuring us that he has not declared as yet.
The cover shows him in a suit, the tie and sun hat bearing MCC colours. Still dapper, still incredibly charismatic, he holds a ball in his right hand and leans against a picket fence.
By accident or design, the picture is symbolic. A man of extraordinary zest for living, drinking to the fullest his cup of life; yet in all his sense of adventure and daring, he remains within the perimeter of the establishment, he leans against the fence without quite crossing it.

That is perhaps Ted Dexter in a dashingly attired nutshell.

Riveting Cricketing Tale

There are several reasons for the reader, especially the ones interested in that particular era of cricket, to be fascinated by the book.
Dexter’s career is described in meticulous detail, the action in the middle punctuated by several intriguing insights and sprinkled with plenty of delightful anecdotes. In the process we also come across the development Dexter the cricketer and the man.
And of course, there is a subsequent part of the book dealing with Dexter the administrator that will be engrossing to those interested in the Gower-Gatting-Gooch era as well.

The Cambridge prodigy meets a Danish girl in Copenhagen so lovely that he gives up the opportunity to play for Sussex that summer. He experiences the thrill of Len Hutton joining him at the wicket and asking ‘Are you all right?’ and a different sort of thrill of Godfrey Evans taking him along to paint the town red.
And along the way he becomes a Test cricketer and thereafter the captain of Sussex and England, and gets married to a glamorous model. The journey is multi-coloured and the brushstrokes that bring it to life are vivid and skilful.

From his horrendous journey from Paris to Sydney as a SOS replacement during the 1958-59 Ashes, the accounts of the tours and Tests remain comprehensive (several pages on the Lord’s Test of 1963 including a paragraph of Alan Ross’s description of his famous 70 against Hall and Griffith).
And as we go through the pages we are fascinated to find various reflections—some astute, some personal.
Dexter contrasts in the way cricket was played then and now—how it would have been impossible to call Peter May ‘Pete’ or ‘Maysie’ but no England cricketer thinks twice about calling the current skipper Rootie. There is a discernible soft spot for Gubby Allen and a marked aversion for Walter Robins.
He is not one to indulge in rosy retrospection, and compares Eoin Morgan’s captaincy favourably with Richie Benaud’s. There is a particular short passage where he dwells on the art and craft of off-spin from Jim Laker to John Emburey to Graeme Swann which is guaranteed to be enthral the discerning reader.

All along we see the evolution of cricket in the 1960s, the limited overs variety coming into the picture. Dexter, a life-long advocate of experiments and innovation, underlines how important this development was. His comments on the return of the leg-spinner due to the current day shortest format exemplifies how astute a reader of the game he remains even at this great age.

The anecdotes are magical. From Fred Trueman refusing to follow the exercise regime devised by co-passenger, the British athlete Gordon Pirrie, to Dexter’s glamorous wife Susan Longfield’s overhearing the young Queen Elizabeth while working as a model for Hardy Amies, they are plentiful. There is tour manager Duke of Norfolk responding to MCC about Dexter’s press contract, “Please don’t bother us, we’re trying to win a Test match. Norfolk.” There is the Maharajakumar of Vijayanagaram recounting his fall from his elephant while out shooting his regulation tiger.

It was perhaps disappointing to see that Dexter does not mention his misdemeanours as twelfth man in Australia 1958-59. He does not repeat, for example, his immortal assertion from Ted Dexter Declares : “by [the final Test] I suppose that the tour manager, captain and players were so sick of my twelfth-man performances that they decided unanimously that I should play.” But then some of the memories are bound to slip by in a long, long life.

It is also rather satisfying to see that Dexter does not mince his words even when it comes to unflattering revelations about names that have gathered gold dust with time. Hence Keith Miller and Neil Harvey are both written about as needlessly vindictive columnists during his 1962-63 visit to Australia as captain. Miller’s uncalled-for potshots at Susan are neither forgotten nor forgiven, and quite justifiably so.

While he is not really enamoured by Peter May’s assertion that England would match the slow over rate of the West Indians, similar takes on Frank Worrell’s unsporting strategy will perhaps raise eyebrows. But Dexter tells it as it was, and at the same time makes no secret of his admiration for Worrell in general.

Given that he is so candid about these hallowed names, it should come as no surprise that Boycott is referred to as the dreaded knight who ran out too many of his partners; and Jeffrey Archer, the author, MP and MCC member, is dismissed as someone with a blend of rhino hide and brass neck.

Other facets of Dexter’s life are also detailed out. We get an uncensored look into his weakness for gambling, the origin of the ‘Lord Ted’ tag, the short and rather ill-advised foray into politics (the final result of the poll 30,129 to 22,288 in favour of James Callaghan is as meticulously noted as lbw Sobers 70 at Lord’s 1963). There is also the Aztec BPA-23 that he flew to Australia in 1970-71.

A particularly important segment concerns the role of Dexter and his company, Ted Dexter and Associates, in the field of cricket data. It was this initiative in the late 1970s and early 1980s that resulted in the feature of on-screen data that we see during telecasts today. And the subsequent mathematical evaluation of cricket performances championed by Dexter, with opposition strength taken into consideration, gave rise to the Deloittes Rankings of batsmen and bowlers. This later became PwC rankings, and eventually the ICC rankings.

Although he does not repeat the statement in this book, in the 1980s Dexter had gone on record saying that this innovation in cricket was his lasting contribution, far greater than a couple of cover drives.
Alan Lee had, quite predictably, ignored this entire episode in the 1995 biography.

The Minor Blips and Aberrations

There are, however, some factual errors.

On page 55 Dexter says that both Trueman and Loader got through his defence in his inaugural season because of his high back-lift. Loader did indeed bowl him, but against Yorkshire Dexter was bowled by Brian Close and not Trueman.

And in 1975, Bob Massie was not in the Australian side which was supposedly swinging the ball with the help of Lipoice. ‘Massy’ was certainly not in the side.

And there is the odd, understandable and eminently excusable typo. For example on page 130 John Reid of New Zealand describes David Larter as: “He is a bit [off] a handful.”

Something else comes across as a bit disappointing.

The book does an excellent job of painting the backdrop while cricket is played through the 1960s. The Bay of Pigs incident, the Cold War, the Profumo Affair, the Beatles, the appointment and later assassination of JFK, are all there to detail the political, social and cultural zeitgeist. However, when we take such scrupulous detailing into account, there is at least one momentous event made conspicuous by its absence.
Significantly, it is Dexter’s Swansong Test, after his unexpected comeback in 1968. The Oval Test was a dramatic one, not least because of the crowd coming in to help the ground staff dry the ground before Underwood dismissed the Australians with minutes to spare on the clock. Dexter does cover the Test in brief. And while he mentions Edrich and D’Oliveira made 300 between them, he does not speak of the D’Oliveira Affair at all.

It was not just any Test match. It was the Test that kickstarted events leading to South Africa’s 21-year-isolation from international cricket. That Dexter entirely omits this matter of monumental importance is more than surprising.

There are one or two other curiosities that struck me while reading.

The South African tour of 1964-65 under MJK Smith saw the nonpareil Wally Hammond attend two Test matches, seated in the English dressing room, a splash of light in the darkness of his final days. It would have been delightful if Dexter had talked about the visit of this giant of yesteryears.

On that same tour, he was 172 not out at stumps on the first day at Wanderers. Dexter writes, “It was a perfect pitch with a flat outfield and as I walked out the next morning I thought I would never have a better chance of beating Len Hutton’s score of 364.
It was 1964-65, and Garry Sobers had scored 365* seven seasons earlier. Dexter’s words tend to suggest that Test cricket was still England vs Australia … and then the rest of the world only as an afterthought. A throwback to the cricketing days of the pre-WW2 era. In fact, while we are fascinated by his progressive innovations later in life, some of his reflections on the Gentleman-Player matches, and the associated divide, do hint that he would have fit right into those ‘good old days’.

In fact, this trait is underlined as he wistfully reflects “Test selection used to be done in my days as captain over a cost chat on a Sunday morning at Gubby Allen’s house near Lord’s. Gubby’s position of absolute authority at the MCC had placed him beyond criticism or challenge. Peter May [Dexter’s predecessor as chairman of selectors] had enjoyed no such challenge.”

Rewarding Read

For the ones interested in a detailed study of Ted Dexter the man and his family, the book is indeed a very apt one. However, perhaps some will find his recollections of his pre-cricket days as well as the chapters on family life a bit too long.

His defence of his ploys both as captain and selector, ploys that have been roundly criticised over the years, are sometimes a bit too prolonged and overdone. But then it is Dexter’s autobiography and it is expected that he will tell his side of the story.

The mystery books penned with Clifford Mankins were not exactly the best in the genre, but there is an interesting quirk about TestKill revealed. This means that I will have to pull out the copy that I had hastily shelved long ago.

In summary, 85 Not Out is a largely rewarding read with some quirks that also provide insights into Dexter the cricketer and the man. At least 250 of the 319 pages of the book have the potential to keep the cricket-loving reader riveted. Several of the other pages, even if they strike a dissonant chord, will offer insights into the man.

It is a book that needs to be savoured—if only for the delightful anecdotes, a life-time of cricket wisdom and astute insights of a 85-year-old former great who remains keen and sharp as ever

85 Not Out
by Ted Dexter
Quiller Publishing Ltd
328 pages
£20