Tom Graveney batting for Worcestershire against Kent at Canterbury in 1970.
Alan Knott is the wicketkeeper.

By David Frith/The Guardian


Of all the poetic images ventured to describe the cricketer Tom Graveney, who has died aged 88, none surpasses Alan Ross’s perception of his batting as yacht-like, “beautiful in calm seas, yet at the mercy of every change of weather”. Tall, slim of shoulder and gifted with rare elegance, he seemed to belong naturally at the batting crease. Indeed, his relaxed countryman image caused the dour England captain Len Hutton to nurse reservations about him. For his part, the affable Graveney was convinced that Hutton had no trust in any cricketer with rosy cheeks.
First chosen for England in 1951 against South Africa, Graveney went on to play in 79 Tests, the last in 1969. Yet only occasionally, despite some striking performances, was he an automatic choice. Partly this was down to Hutton’s early misgivings, but it was also due to Graveney’s frustrating inability to consistently project himself as a rock solid presence at international level. The grace and ease with which he batted perhaps enhanced this impression, though the sheer breadth of his achievements - including more than 100 first class hundreds – belied it.
Born in Riding Mill, Northumberland, Graveney was six when his father died, and he was 11 when his mother took him and his elder brother, Ken, to live in Bristol. Thereafter Tom was to be regarded as a West Country man, enrolling at Bristol grammar school.
Ken, who played for Gloucestershire either side of a long absence with a back injury, and once took all 10 wickets against Derbyshire, saw second world war service, landing in Normandy on D-day. Tom joined the Gloucestershire regiment in 1945 for two years, serving in Egypt and batting on concrete pitches, before returning to secure a contract with the county club. On his Gloucestershire debut in 1948 his batsmanship was instantly perceived as high class.
On his first overseas tour for England (1951-52) Graveney stroked 175 in a Bombay Test, and in the memorable summer of 1953, against Australia, he was part of a celebrated Ashes winning side. But a 92 in Trinidad was his main offering in the classic 1953-54 England tour of the Caribbean, and the following winter he was selected only twice in the winning series in Australia.
At least triumph came at the end of the tour when he composed a century in the fifth Test at Sydney, his only 100 against the Aussies. Pink-faced and perspiring profusely at a drinks break when he had scored 86, upon resumption Graveney stroked Keith Miller for four fours in the next over. Later he chalked up his only Test wicket when Colin McDonald nicked a leg-break to Godfrey Evans.
There was a short time when Graveney found himself opening the innings for England, not a preferred position. But when the 1956 Australians arrived he was moving back down the order, short of runs, and without a guaranteed place in the Test team. He was not chosen for the 1956-57 tour of South Africa even though he had just made 2,397 runs (49.93) in the summer, which remained his richest return.
Restored to the England team in 1957, he followed a duck against West Indies at Lord’s with 258 at Trent Bridge, which was to be his highest first-class score, and in England’s third innings victory of that series he made 164 at The Oval in the final Test. However, some more forgettable Test matches followed, including during one of England’s worst-ever series in Australia in 1958-59, and there were no Tests for him in 1959.
All the while Graveney was pleasing crowds across the land as he gathered runs for his county, which he captained in 1959 and 1960. Then came a fall-out with the county hierarchy, Graveney being unceremoniously stripped of the captaincy as a perceived cure for the general problems facing the club.
In 1961, with emotions running high, especially among Gloucestershire members, he began a new career with Worcestershire, which he was to serve for 10 summers, the last three as captain. His achievement of playing more than 200 first-class matches for two counties remains unmatched.
By the time of his move to Worcestershire, Graveney’s Test career had seemed to be over – until he was recalled in 1962, just before his 35th birthday. He showed his gratitude with 97 against Pakistan at Edgbaston, 153 at Lord’s, and 114 at Trent Bridge, but did little in the middle order for England in Australia in the turgid 1962-63 series, and a further period of international exclusion followed.
Then he was surprisingly recalled for the 1966 home series against West Indies. It was a popular and dramatic comeback: he returned in style with 96 at Lord’s and 109 at Trent Bridge in the third Test.
England took a pounding that summer, but in the final encounter at The Oval Graveney was again at his lyrical best, making 165 and sharing an amazing eighth-wicket stand of 217 with John Murray (112). When Ken Higgs and John Snow put on an unlikely 128 for the 10th wicket, lifting the total to 527, England were on their way to a consolation victory by an innings under Brian Close’s bulldog leadership.
Next summer saw another beguiling performance by Graveney, 151 at Lord’s against India’s trio of master spin bowlers, Erapalli Prasanna, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and Bishan Bedi. And the question continued to reverberate: how could the selectors have overlooked him so often? He toured the Caribbean early in 1968, making 118 in Trinidad in the opening Test, but managed only one 50 thereafter in a series that was snatched 1-0 by England.
During an ill-tempered Jamaica Test, seriously disturbed by crowd rioting, he gave in to frustration by tossing his bat 30 yards after his freakish dismissal when caught by midwicket via short leg’s body. It was a highly unusual move for such a good-natured man.
The 1968 Ashes summer found him still in the middle order, and he made 96 at Edgbaston, then at Headingley he captained England (for the only time) when Colin Cowdrey was injured. A draw secured the Ashes for Australia.
At the age of 41 Graveney undertook a further tour of Pakistan in 1969, playing three Tests against a background of fearful public and political disturbances that eventually led to abandonment of the tour.
He scored 105 in a large stand with Colin Milburn in that truncated series, and three months later he hit 75 against West Indies at Old Trafford in a winning cause, but was then suspended for having played in a benefit match on the rest day. It was a teeth-gnashing way to end a superb international career.
Graveney’s Test career over 18 years had brought him 4,882 runs at an average of 44.38, with 11 hundreds. Now into his 40s, he squeezed in a couple of further summers with Worcestershire, raising his impressive first-class output to 47,793 runs at 44.92, with 122 hundreds (seven of them 200 or more).
At the end of his career, in late 1970, he signed up as a player-coach for Queensland in Australia, playing four matches for the state in the Sheffield Shield. But his stay there was short-lived after he crossed swords with the dictatorial Clem Jones, a local Labor politician who controlled the state’s cricket and much else.
Thereafter he ran a pub in Cheltenham, pursued his love of golf, did some somewhat bland television commentary, promoted artificial pitches, and was enlisted as an international match referee, an appointment terminated after exception was taken to remarks he made about Pakistan (“they’ve been cheating us for 37 years”). His terms as president of Worcestershire (1994-98) and the MCC (2005) afforded him great joy, as did being appointed OBE (1968). The service of his nephew, David Graveney, as England’s chief selector was a further source of pride to a man whose own career had been buffeted by selectorial inconsistency.
His wife, Jackie (nee Brookman), whom he married in 1952 died in 2013; Ken died last month. He is survived by a son, Tim, and daughter, Becky.
• Thomas William Graveney, cricketer, born 16 June 1927; died 3 November 2015