Farewell to Graham Cowdrey, cricket’s king of the dressing room

So the Good Lord really wants to fill out his team: how else to interpret the passing in recent months of three of the finest footballers of the past century — Jack Charlton, Nobby Stiles and Ray Clemence. All received thoroughly deserved eulogies. All had reached the highest realms of their sport and, though none made it to a very great age, they did at least achieve the biblical milestone of three score years and ten.

All deaths have a depth to their sadness, felt most deeply by immediate family, but not all have an added melancholy that engages us in a quite different way. Graham Cowdrey’s passing in seemingly straitened circumstances after a short illness was such a death. He didn’t reach his three score and ten — he was only 56 — and he didn’t achieve the highest realms of his sport, although he was a mighty fine batsman for Kent for more than decade.