Clive Clay Inman (29 January 1936 – 7 December 2022) was a Sri Lankan cricketer who played

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 ...

for

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

from 1956 to 1966 and for

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...

from 1961 to 1971.

Cricket career

Inman attended St Peter's College, Colombo. He played for the school's senior cricket team for five seasons, and captained it to victory in the Battle of the Saints against St Joseph's College in his final season, 1954–55. Inman made his first-class debut in 1956, representing Ceylon against

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

at the P Saravanamuttu Stadium. Although Inman didn't make an impact with the bat, he claimed the wicket of opener

Nari Contractor Nariman Jamshedji "Nari" Contractor (born 7 March 1934) is a former Indian cricket player, who was a left-handed opening batsman. His professional career ended after a serious injury. Cricket career Contractor began his first-class career, p ...

. He would go on to play another 254 first-class matches but it would remain his only wicket. A left-handed middle-order batsman, Inman made sporadic appearances for Ceylon in the Gopalan Trophy during the remainder of the decade before moving to England and joining his countryman Stanley Jayasinghe at

. His first match for the English club came against the touring Australian side in 1961 when he contributed 30 and 45 not out. He had to wait until 1963 to make his

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...

debut and a few days later he scored his maiden first-class

century A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. A centennial or ...

against

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

. Inman was selected to tour England with the Ceylon team in 1968, but the tour was cancelled just before it was due to begin. He had his most prolific season in 1968, scoring 1735 runs at 36.91. Despite the high tally of runs he only scored one century that season. Only in his final county season, 1971, did he score four hundreds in a year. One of those came in his final ever first-class match, played against

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

at Grace Road. Inman also played some

List A cricket List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numbe ...

with

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

in 1973. In September 2018, he was one of 49 former Sri Lankan cricketers felicitated by

Sri Lanka Cricket Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) is the governing body for cricket in Sri Lanka. It was first registered with the Sri Lankan Ministry of Sports (Sri Lanka), Ministry of Sports as the Board of Cricket for Sri Lanka (BCCSL) on 30 June 1975 as a national spo ...

, to honour them for their services before Sri Lanka became a full member of the

International Cricket Council The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the world governing body of cricket. Headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, its members are List of International Cricket Council members, 108 national associations, with 12 List of Internation ...

(ICC).

Personal life and death

Inman died in England on 7 December 2022, at the age of 86.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Inman, Clive 1936 births 2022 deaths Sri Lankan cricketers All-Ceylon cricketers Leicestershire cricketers Derbyshire cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Alumni of St. Peter's College, Colombo A. E. R. Gilligan's XI cricketers Cricketers from Colombo