Cecil Gerard Alexander Paris (20 August 1911 in

Kirkee Khadki is a cantonment in the city of Pune, India. It has now flourished as a quasi-metropolis & centered in the northern region of the city. Description Khadki could be considered an Indian Army base, along with an ordnance factory consisting ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

– 4 April 1998 in

Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

) was an English

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

er. He was a right-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, the ...

who bowled occasional right-arm

off spin Off spin is a type of finger spin bowling in cricket. A bowler who uses this technique is called an off spinner. Off spinners are right arm, right-handed spin bowling, spin bowlers who use their fingers to spin the ball. Their normal Delivery (cr ...

. In addition Paris was also a prominent cricket administrator. Paris played for

from 1933-1948. He captained the county in the

1938 County Championship The 1938 County Championship was the 45th officially organised running of the County Championship. Yorkshire County Cricket Club Yorkshire County Cricket Club is one of 18 first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of ...

, his only season as captain. Paris also played for the

Marylebone Cricket Club Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influence ...

in 1939. No first-class cricket was played due to the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, so it was six years until Paris could resume his first-class career with Hampshire in

1946 Events January * January 6 - The 1946 North Vietnamese parliamentary election, first general election ever in Vietnam is held. * January 7 – The Allies recognize the Austrian republic with its 1937 borders, and divide the country into f ...

. Paris retired from first-class cricket at the end of the

1948 County Championship The 1948 County Championship was the 49th officially organised running of the County Championship, and ran from 8 May to 31 August 1948. Glamorgan County Cricket Club claimed their first title. In August 1948, Glamorgan's match against Glouceste ...

. Outside of playing for Hampshire Paris also held every office of note at the club: cricket chairman; club chairman; and president from 1984 to 1989. Paris was the first chairman of the

Test and County Cricket Board The Test and County Cricket Board (TCCB) was the governing body for Test and county cricket in Great Britain between 1968 and 1996. The TCCB was established in 1968 to replace the functions of the Board of Control for Test Matches (established in ...

, formed in 1968, then being nominated by

Prince Philip Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, later Philip Mountbatten; 10 June 1921 – 9 April 2021) was the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. As such, he served as the consort of the British monarch from E ...

to succeed him in 1975 as president of

(MCC) and chairman of the

International Cricket Conference The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the world governing body of cricket. It was founded as the ''Imperial Cricket Conference'' in 1909 by representatives from Australia, England and South Africa. It was renamed as the ''International C ...

Outside cricket

Paris served in the

with the

21st Army Group The 21st Army Group was a British headquarters formation formed during the Second World War. It controlled two field armies and other supporting units, consisting primarily of the British Second Army and the First Canadian Army. Established in ...

where he served as a

Liaison officer A Liaison officer is a person who liaises between two or more organizations to communicate and coordinate their activities on a matter of mutual concern. Generally, liaison officers are used for achieving the best utilization of resources, or empl ...

for

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of highest military ranks, high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers t ...

Montgomery. During his role as a Liaison officer between Montgomery and the

1st Czechoslovak Armoured Brigade The 1st Czechoslovak Independent Armoured Brigade Group ( cs, Československá samostatná obrněná brigáda, Slovak: Československá samostatná obrnená brigáda) was an armoured unit of expatriate Czechoslovaks organised and equipped by the ...

Paris was awarded the Czechoslovak War Cross, the Czech version of the British

Military Cross The Military Cross (MC) is the third-level (second-level pre-1993) military decoration awarded to officers and (since 1993) other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and formerly awarded to officers of other Commonwealth countries. The MC i ...

. Paris was made a partner in his family's law firm Paris Smith and Randall, based in

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

. Paris died in

aged 86 on 4 April 1998.

Foreign and international awards

External links

Cecil Paris
at

Cricinfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...

Cecil Paris
at CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:Paris, Cecil 1911 births Military personnel of British India 1998 deaths English cricket administrators Hampshire cricketers Hampshire cricket captains Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Cricketers from Pune Presidents of the Marylebone Cricket Club English cricketers British Army personnel of World War II Recipients of the Czechoslovak War Cross Royal Artillery officers Gentlemen cricketers 20th-century British lawyers 20th-century English lawyers 20th-century British businesspeople British people in colonial India