My favourite sporting memory is a protracted one, lasting five days. It was the first Test Match I saw in the flesh. The summer of 1963, when the brilliant West Indians ignited a damp summer.
I had travelled down from my home in Scotland for the Lord's Test and although it was a cold, cheerless experience, the quality of play was an eye-opener, like nothing I had seen live on TV. Conrad Hunte, that stylish opener hit the first four balls of the match to the boundary off Fred Trueman. I can still see Fred standing in the middle, hands on hips, expostulating to no one in particular, while his captain Colin Cowdrey tried hard to keep a straight face in the slips.
The match ended dramatically on the final evening, with Cowdrey at the non-striker's end, his right arm in plaster, having been struck by a lifter from Wes Hall in the first innings. The aforementioned Hall was bowling that final furious over in the gloom, with David Allen resisting stoutly, as England finished just eight runs short of victory, with only two wickets left.
Allen prevailed over the doughty Hall, but what a finish!
In between that explosive opening over and that dramatic finish, there were enough spectacular moments to keep anyone transfixed - but the highlight was a majestic innings of 70 from Ted Dexter. It remains the most commanding hour's batting I have seen from anyone. Hall, Charlie Griffith and Gary Sobers would be a demanding pace trio on any occasion, but in dank, gloomy conditions, with no sightscreen at the Pavilion End, Dexter was astonishingly dominant.
His off-driving was simply sensational, the crack of bat on ball still resounding in my ears down the decades. Watching cricket at this level on TV doesn't prepare you for the real thing, when you see Dexter, standing tall, with no sightscreen at one end, treating those three quick bowlers as if they were leg spinners. I had never seen the ball hit so hard. No one has revered the great Sobers more than me, but I cursed him when he trapped Dexter lbw with a clever in-swinger.
Truly the light went out of the day when Dexter left, but the memory of that innings is burnished in my mind. Decades later, when Dexter became an idiosyncratic chairman of England selectors for a tiresome of the players he picked used to laugh at his quirks and whimsical public utterances that kept the media entertained. I would happily tell those players, 'If you'd seen Ted Dexter bat at his best, you wouldn't be laughing at him today. You'd be in awe.'
Ted Dexter was that good. Ask Gary Sobers
Patrick Murphy
Memory added on July 21, 2015
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