Denis Compton

The, the two that come to mind are both left arm wrist.

In fact, the three that come to mind are probably all left arm wrist spinners, which would be Simon Katich, Dennis Compton, and I've missed the other one.

Uh, Michael Bevan.

Because there are so few left arm wrist spinners, I don't think they were that far away.

Like, I think Bevan and, um, Bevan and Katich both had pretty good records.

Dennis Compton I don't think actually did that well in test cricket.

Let me have a look here.

Dennis Compton took 25 wickets at 56.

For a Pakistani to break into it in 1955, that's iconic of it, in and of its own.

Yeah, in that 1954 O- Oval test in which he bowled Pakistan to, uh, to victory, he got out Len Hutton, Dennis Compton, and Peter May in both innings of the game, and if we're doing-

Mm

...

You're no good.

So people like Wally Hammond, Jack Hobbs, Len Hutton, Dennis Compton, no, no, they just write them off.

Never mind the people like Gooch and me, they just write you off.

You were rubbish.

I was saying to Mum that we were talking about your games when I told her about the, the one where I was jumping over the lines and walking over them in the car, and that you have all your different ones.

And I was like, "Well, I did used to have mine, where I had, like, these little toy figures, and they all had backstories, and they all had names, and they would interact together." So there was a, like, a bear holding some washing, so she was the maid bear called Martha, and then there was a, a bear that was dressed as a cricket player, so he was called Dennis Compton.

And there were all these different ones inhabiting this little town, and I would just sit for hours making them talk to each other, and I had, like, a full, almost, like, soap opera style setup for them where they were all interacting.

But not as dramatic as a, a proper soap opera.

And likewise, Paddington, Paddington Station and the Notting Hill or Nottingdale area in particular around it becomes an important hub.

So I don't have any sort of specific information on that, but you can definitely see, and it's particularly true in Liverpool and the surrounding areas, that a lot of immigrants who are coming off the boats or who were working on boats um play kind of significant role in the in the sporting ecosystem the cricket ecosystem but by the way many of these cricket clubs um and this speaks to a bygone age where cricket and football were really kind of two sides of the same coin um many of these cricket clubs these caribbean clubs also fielded football teams during the winter season um so cricketers and footballers were were were far more um common as a um you know as a combined kind of skill and expertise i suppose dennis compton was the most famous um and probably the the best exponent of that art because he played for arsenal and england at football and um england uh i can't remember his county i'm sure somebody here will be able to tell me middlesex middlesex yeah okay um I thought so.

Um, you know, uh, so that's extraordinary.

So yes, so many of them were playing both football and, uh, cricket as part of the, um, what was often called a Caribbean sports and social club, but thank you.