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Denis Compton, cricket cavalier, passes away

"There will be a tear in many an eye," said British Prime Minister John Major in London on Tuesday, reacting to the news that Denis Charles Scott Compton, one of the all-time greats of English cricket, passed away at the age of 78.

Easily one of the all-time greats of the game, Compton was warm-hearted, carefree, careless, vague, charming - and, above all, a cricketing genius.

A brilliant right-hand batsman and occasional - but destructive - purveyor of left-arm unorthodox spin, Compton was noted most especially for the poetry of his batting, allied with a certain schoolboy impishness that accompanied his shot-selection.

His most pleasing stroke was the cover drive, played by the book and invariably placed just that little shade out of reach of the fielders; his most breathtaking stroke the leg glance, played with a finesse and a scarcely credible lateness that took the ball almost out of the keeper's gloves and caressed it to the fine leg fence. And, of course, the most publicised of his strokes, the one that spectators everywhere paid good money to see him play, was the sweep - played with an audacity, played perilously late to both fast and slow bowlers.

Compton, for all his unorthodoxy at the crease, was one of the soundest of technicians when he needed to be - it was just that the spirit of amateurism burnt brighter in him perhaps than in most of his contemporaries, and consequently, he shunned the mundane business of defensive strokeplay with a passion.

If his cricketing technique had a defect, it lay in his running between wickets - a process almost as perilous, and as prone to confusion, as negotiations between the Jews and the Arabs, or between Serbia and Bosnia. Trevor Bailey, his contemporary, was once moved, after a stint of call and counter-call out there in the middle, to quip: "A call from Denis was merely the basis for a negotiation!"

Another defect, if one can apply the term to a Compton, was a wooly-haired sense of time. On one occasion, he was driving leisurely in the direction of Lord's when, at a traffic light, a motorist in the next car recognised him and asked him why he was not out there in the middle. Compton looked at his watch and pointed out that he had some few minutes left before start of play - only to be reminded by the motorist that it being the last day of play, proceedings began half an hour earlier than usual.

When weighed against his scintillant brilliance at the crease, however, these defects mattered little. In fact, so transcendant was his popularity that the agent, Bagenal Harvey, built an entire business out of the cricketer's endorsements. His most memorable face was that of the Brylcreem Boy - in fact, he was the first cricketer to figure in ads for the hair product.

Though Compton was equally talented on the soccer field, having played for Arsenal and England (he actually had 14 England caps to his credit), cricket was his first love.

He debuted for his county, Middlesex, against Sussex at Lord's in 1936, featuring as a slow left arm bowler and number 11 batsman. Soon, he was moved up the order, and in fact went on to record over 1,000 runs in his very first season with the club. In fact, he was to make 1,000 runs or more in a season 17 times in course of his career, on three occasions performing the feat on foreign soil.

In 1937, he debuted for England against New Zealand at The Oval, and scored 65 before he was, what else?, run out. And in his next Test - against Australia at Trent Bridge - he scored the first of his 17 Test centuries, hitting up 102 in rapid time.

Compton's football commitments for Arsenal prevented him from making the 1938-39 tour of South Africa. After the war - and most especially in that idyllic summer of 1947 when his great powers were at their peak, he dominated the international scene as few others have managed to. In five Tests against South Africa that year, he made 753 runs at an average of 94.12, and in all first class matches that season scored an incredible 3,816 runs at an average of 90.85 - studded with 18 centuries!

Compton was at his very best whenever England took on arch rivals Australia - in 1946-47 he scored 459 runs against them, and a year later, 562 runs.

For such a lazy-seeming, languid cricketer, Compton was gutsy beyond belief. Old timers recall how, at Old Trafford, he took a ball from Ray Lindwall on his face and retired, bleeding - only to return and slam a breathtaking 145 not out.

There is no telling just what Compton may not have achieved if a knee injury suffered while playing football had not begun to assume alarming proportions. And Compton in fact was hampered by that injury when, in 1948-49, he slammed 300 runs in three hours for MCC against North East Transvaal, at the Benoni ground in Souuth Africa - easily the fastest triple hundred ever recorded.

Compton, fittingly enough, played his last Test innings against Australia, almost immediately after an operation to remove his right kneecap. His tally - a top score of 94 in the first innings, and 35 not out in the second.

For Indian fans, however, the most memorable facet of the great man's career will remain his appearance, in the colours of Holkar, in 1945-'46, when cricket was at a standstill in war-torn England. Playing alongside such greats as Mushtaq Ali and C K Nayadu, Compton's transcendent genius lit up the stadia time and again, a double century in electric fashion against Bombay being but just one of many memorable innings.

Compton was awarded the CBE, and went on to become an occasional cricket correspondent and BBC commentator, occasionally turning out for the Lord's Taverers in charity matches. Interestingly, his elder brother Leslie has played cricket for Middlesex, and soccer for Arsenal and England.

In his personal life, Denis Compton was warm, but disorganised - as testified to by three marriagesm all ending in divorce.

But say the name Denis Compton, and there is just one memory that will be evoked - that of a dashing cavalier, going down on one knee to sweep the fastest of bowlers from almost off his back-teeth, the ball racing to the square leg boundary with almost the speed of thought...

Career stats: First class career, 1936-1964: 38,942 runs at an averaage of 51.85; 123 centuries; 622 wickets at an average of 32.27; 416 catches.
Test career: Played 78 Tests, 5,807 runs at an average of 50.06; 17 centuries, 25 wickets at an average of 56.4, 49 catches.