46 Facts About Ted Dexter

Ted Dexter captained England in 30 test matches out of his 62 test match appearances.

Ted Dexter is credited for his instrumental role in the formation of the modern ICC Player Rankings system.

Ted Dexter was born in Milan in Italy, where his father Ralph Ted Dexter ran a successful underwriting agency.

Ted Dexter entered Jesus College, Cambridge in October 1955, where he played golf and rugby in addition to winning his cricket Blue and playing in the University Match in 1956,1957 and 1958.

Ted Dexter arrived in the middle of the tour, did not have time to acclimatize and although he did well in the tour matches he failed in the Tests.

Ted Dexter hit 132 not out in the First Test, 110 in the Fourth Test, made 526 runs, topping the England batting averages, and was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1961.

On his return Ted Dexter was made captain of Sussex, which he held until he retired in 1965.

Ted Dexter had a quiet home Test season against South Africa, but in the First Test at Edgbaston in the 1961 Ashes series England started their second innings needing 321 runs to avoid an innings defeat.

Ted Dexter made 180, the biggest century for England against Australia since the war and studded with 31 cracking boundaries, but typically he was stumped in the last minutes of the match trying to hit Bobby Simpson for six so he could make a double century.

Ted Dexter was a man of moods, often caught up in theories, keen when the action was hot, seemingly uninterested when the game was dull.

Ted Dexter captained England in the First and Second Tests against Pakistan, winning two big victories, but Colin Cowdrey was put in charge for the Third Test.

Ted Dexter was put back in charge, but found another rival in the old Sussex captain the Reverend David Sheppard, who was willing to take a sabbatical from his church mission in the East End in order to tour Australia.

Sheppard made 112 for the Gentlemen and was chosen for the tour, but Ted Dexter was confirmed as captain for the remainder of the home series and the forthcoming tour of Australia and New Zealand with Cowdrey as vice-captain.

Ted Dexter made 481 runs, the most runs by an England captain in Australia, and this remains a record.

Against Veivers, an off-spinner, Ted Dexter twice cleared the sight screen, once by a good 20 yards.

Ted Dexter continued his good run of form to equal Patsy Hendren's England record of six consecutive Test 50s, which he soon shared with Ken Barrington and more recently Alastair Cook.

Australia came back to win the Third Test at Sydney, where Ted Dexter had preferred to keep his fast bowling attack from the Second Test even when Fred Trueman volunteered to stand down in favour of a second spinner to Fred Titmus.

Benaud was an advocate of "go ahead" captaincy and Ted Dexter for "brighting up" cricket and their reputations were unfairly tarnished.

We had a disastrous start, with Charlie Griffith blasting out both our openers very cheaply, and Ted Dexter unleashing one of his finest displays of controlled aggression I have ever witnessed.

Ted Dexter stood up and hit the quick bowlers all over the show for an hour.

England levelled the series in the Third Test thanks to Ted Dexter and Fred Trueman, but lost the last two Tests and the series.

In 1964 Ted Dexter was again in charge in the rain-soaked 1964 Ashes series.

Ted Dexter took the new ball and gave it to Fred Trueman who bowled a series of bouncers which Peter Burge hooked and pulled to 160, hoisting Australia to 389 and a 7 wicket win.

Ted Dexter really became involved, more so than in county games.

Ted Dexter even made a marked difference to our one day performances when he returned for a season of Sunday League games in the early 1970s.

Ted Dexter left Sussex and played occasional Sunday games with the International Cavaliers, and made 104 when they defeated the 1966 West Indians by 7 wickets.

Ted Dexter returned briefly in 1968, making 203 not out in his comeback match against Kent, but failing in the 1968 Ashes series.

Ted Dexter played Sunday League games for Sussex in 1971 and 1972.

Ted Dexter retired from cricket to concentrate on other interests in 1968, remaining a journalist, becoming a broadcaster and founding a PR company.

In 1987, Ted Dexter had the idea of developing a ranking system for Test cricketers.

Ted Dexter developed the system with statisticians Gordon Vince and Rob Eastaway, and it was launched as the Deloittes Ratings.

Ted Dexter's cause was not helped by the announcement of the Mike Gatting's rebel tour of South Africa in the middle of the series, which removed more than fifteen England players from contention.

The lackadaisical Gower was fired at the end of the summer and the more painstaking Graham Gooch was made captain until 1993, despite Ted Dexter having called his previous appointment as captain as "being hit in the face by a dead fish".

Ted Dexter was Chairman of the MCC's "England Committee", which was an administrative role and was awarded the CBE in the 2001 New Year Honours.

Ted Dexter was a cavalier batsman in the old amateur style and a ferocious strokemaker, but was known as being moody and mercurial.

Ted Dexter devised innovative field placings for limited overs games and his 'ideas changed the game forever.

Ted Dexter is a very lovely lady, but on hearing of her arrival, when Ted faced the press, the majority of questions posed were about his wife.

Ted Dexter was the daughter of a former Kent cricketer Tom Longfield, whom he met at a party at Cambridge University while still an undergraduate and decided to marry on sight.

Ted Dexter went on to win the President's Putter three times in his career.

Ted Dexter launched his own PR company, which ran for many years and briefly became a television cricket commentator, alongside Richie Benaud and Denis Compton.

Ted Dexter wrote a weekly column on cricket for The Observer, and then, more lucratively, for the Sunday Mirror.

Ted Dexter carried a then rare portable television to watch races in cricket dressing rooms and once declared a Sussex innings from Brighton Racecourse.

Ted Dexter co-wrote with Clifford Makins the crime novel Testkill where an Australian bowler is murdered during play at a Test match against England at Lord's.

In December 2012, on BBC One's Antiques Roadshow, Ted Dexter appeared with expert Paul Atterbury who confessed to having held Ted Dexter as a personal hero since childhood.

Ted Dexter was the only serving officer who enlisted at the start of the war to have survived until the end, and had been awarded the Military Cross, a medal which had now been stolen.

Ted Dexter left a widow Susan, a son, daughter and several grandchildren.