Graham Cowdrey
Cricketer who scored thousands of runs but remained in the shadow of his famous father, Colin
GRAHAM COWDREY, who has died aged 56, was the youngest son of Colin Cowdrey, one of the most famous of cricketers, and the brother of Chris, who also captained England. Although he felt encumbered throughout his life by having to live up to the family name, and did not make any international appearances, he still managed to score 14,000 runs in all forms of the game.
From an early age Cowdrey was thought likely to become the best batsmen of three brothers. Chris, unable to stroke the ball through the covers like his father had done, deliberately focused more on playing through the leg side, while Jeremy chose to go into the City rather than attempt to play first-class cricket. Graham could hit the ball harder than any of them and was best suited to the one-day game.
In a career with Kent lasting from 1984 to 1998, he scored 8,858 first-class runs with a top score of 147, averaging 34.73. Others with similar records were given a chance by England, but for Graham the call never came. Instead, he had to contend with some spiky comments from supporters accustomed to the success his father had had and in particular the stylish manner in which he scored his runs.
Not that Colin Cowdrey heaped pressure on his sons to play the game professionally. He encouraged them to take up all sports and would hide behind a tree on school grounds when they were growing up. Sooner or later, though, he would be spotted and pointed out. And when, in his last year at Wellesley House prep school, Broadstairs, Graham averaged 85 with the bat, his mother, Penny, became embarrassed by his sheer weight of runs.
Graham Robert Cowdrey was born into this cricketing dynasty on June 27 1964. He was selected for Tonbridge School’s first XI when he was only 13, as his father, who played in 114 Test matches for England, had been. Unhappy at being taken out of his own age group, and insecure after his parents’ marriage broke up the following year, Cowdrey began to doubt whether he wanted to play cricket for a living. Yet after a year at Durham University, he decided there was no better alternative.
He was to come to the view that he would have had more success had he played for another county and, indeed, had his name been plain Graham Smith. His game was also affected when he was hit in the mouth by Michael Holding, the West Indian fast bowler who was playing for Derbyshire, and by too much playing, travelling and endless talking about the game.
He was, though, as capable of playing a long innings as he was of biffing the ball to the boundary, which he did most effectively in one-day cricket through strong forearms. In 1986, his first full season, Cowdrey made a half century in a low-scoring Benson & Hedges Cup final against a strong Middlesex attack. He held, with Aravinda de Silva, the Kent record for any wicket in first-class cricket, 368 against Derbyshire in 1995, which stood for 22 years.
Cowdrey joined Christians in Sport and was given “a spiritual injection” every fortnight by the Rev Andrew Wingfield Digby, who was to become England’s unofficial chaplain. Derek Underwood, the great spin bowler who had played under his father and who was still in the Kent side, stressed the importance of socialising after play, saying it was imperative to relax, but Graham preferred to melt away: often to attend Van Morrison concerts – he was reported to have seen the great singer-songwriter 250 times – or Bob Dylan’s, along with Bob Willis, his fellow cricketer and pop music aficionado.
Cowdrey possessed an excellent sense of humour – he was a close friend of the comedian Rory Bremner – as well as the self-effacing nature common to all his family. When he retired from the game, he worked for two spread betting companies, Sporting Index and Cantor Index, as a cricket expert, but he began to suffer from heart trouble as well as financial difficulties at a silent auction company he founded.
He was then employed by the England and Wales Cricket Board as a match liaison officer and by Amazon as a delivery driver, by which time he was sleeping on his sister’s sofa or living out of a suitcase.
He had married Maxine Juster, a champion amateur jockey, in 1993, but they parted, and he left the house he shared with her and their two sons and a daughter, who survive him.
Graham Cowdrey, born June 27 1964, died November 10 2020