Ted Dexter

Nicknamed Lord Ted, Ted Dexter or Edward Ralph Dexter is a former player from England. He was born in Milan, Italy but was brought up in England. He was a right handed batsman and a right armed medium pacer. He studied at the Jesus College at Cambridge. Besides cricket, he also had interest in golf and was really good at it.

Being 6 foot tall, he had a good command over his strokes on field. Before joining the international squad, he played a good deal of first class cricket with Sussex, MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club) and Cambridge University clubs. He began his cricketing career in 1958 when he was picked up to play against New Zealand. He became a regular at the test squad from 1959 onwards.

While playing fir Sussex from 1963 till 1972, he captained the team from 1960 to 1965. Also when the English team toured India and Pakistan in 1961-62, Dexter was named the captain for the squad. In 1964, under his captaincy, England played the Ashes but lost to their rivals by 1-0 on home grounds. This loss cost Dexter his captaincy, but he still played with the rest of the team.

Dexter has played a total of 43 List A matches scoring 1,209 runs from them at an average of 33.58. During this time, he scored a century and 8 half centuries. His bowling averages remained at 19.85 with best bowling figures at 3 wickets for 6 runs. Throughout the 62 test matches that he played, he scored 4,502 runs from them at the average of 47.89. He also played 327 one day international matches and with an average of 40.75 scored 21,150 runs. His bowling averages for test matches remained at 34.93 and that of ODI was at 29.92.

Dexter’s cricket career was put to a halt when he was involved in an accident in 1965. He broke his leg and was severely injured. Although he returned to playing cricket in 1967 and 1968, but could not perform as well as his earlier days. Eventually, he retired from cricket and concentrated in other hobbies. He was interested in becoming a writer and along with that, he became a broadcaster. In 1989, he became the Chairman of selectors’ team for England. He was also name president of MCC until 2003. He also played a few other administrative roles and was honored with a CBE (Order of the British Empire - Commander) in 2000 by the British Government.

Career Highlights

He was named the Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1961.

Dexter won the first ever Gillette Cup in 1963 and retained the trophy in the next year also.