Dennis Frank Cox (21 December 1925 – 22 February 2001) was an English

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er and cricket administrator. Cox 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 right-arm

fast-medium Fast bowling (also referred to as pace bowling) is one of two main approaches to bowling in the sport of cricket, the other being spin bowling. Practitioners of pace bowling are usually known as ''fast'' bowlers, ''quicks'', or ''pacemen''. T ...

. He was born in

Bermondsey Bermondsey () is a district in southeast London, part of the London Borough of Southwark, England, southeast of Charing Cross. To the west of Bermondsey lies Southwark, to the east Rotherhithe and Deptford, to the south Walworth and Peckham, a ...

, London. Cox made his first-class debut for

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

against 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 1949. He made 41 further first-class appearances for the county, the last of which came against

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

1957 County Championship The 1957 County Championship was the 58th officially organised running of the County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket ...

. In his 41 first-class appearances for the university, he scored a total of 660 runs at an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

of 18.85, with a high score of 57. This score, was of four fifties he made, came against Gloucestershire in 1955. With the ball, he took 68 wickets at a

bowling average In cricket, a player's bowling average is the number of runs they have conceded per wicket taken. The lower the bowling average is, the better the bowler is performing. It is one of a number of statistics used to compare bowlers, commonly use ...

of 34.05, with best figures of 7/22. One of two

five wicket haul In cricket, a five-wicket haul (also known as a "five–for" or "fifer") occurs when a bowler takes five or more wickets in a single innings. This is regarded by critics as a notable achievement, equivalent to a century from a batsman. Taking ...

s, these figures came 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 ...

in 1952, with him taking match figures of 11/70. He left Surrey at the end of the 1958 season. He proceeded to join

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

in the 1961

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship (previously the Minor Counties Cricket Championship) is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national cou ...

against

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

. He played

Minor counties The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

cricket for Cheshire from 1961 to 1967. He made two

List A 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 ...

appearances for Cheshire. The first of these came against Surrey in the

1964 Gillette Cup The 1964 Gillette Cup was the second Gillette Cup, an English limited overs county cricket tournament. It was held between 25 April and 5 September 1964, and was won by the defending champions Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), i ...

. Again his former county, he went wicket-less and was dismissed for a

duck Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfamilies, they are a form t ...

David Sydenham David Alfred Donald Sydenham (born 6 April 1934) is a former English first-class cricketer. A left-arm fast bowler, he played with Surrey County Cricket Club from 1957 to 1965, then had one further match in 1972. In the 1962 season Sydenham top ...

. His second of these came against

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

in the

1965 Gillette Cup The 1965 Gillette Cup was the third Gillette Cup, an English limited overs county cricket tournament. It was held between 23 April and 4 September 1965. The tournament was won by Yorkshire, following Geoff Boycott's 146 runs in the final at Lord ...

. Cox didn't bowl in this match, while with the bat he scored 2 runs before being dismissed by

Ken Higgs Kenneth Higgs (14 January 1937 – 7 September 2016) was an English fast-medium bowler, who was most successful as the opening partner to Brian Statham with Lancashire in the 1960s. He later played with success for Leicestershire. Cricket wr ...

. He later served at the President of Surrey County Cricket Club, in doing so becoming only the fourth former professional cricketer to do so. He died at

Chislehurst Chislehurst () is a suburban district of south-east London, England, in the London Borough of Bromley. It lies east of Bromley, south-west of Sidcup and north-west of Orpington, south-east of Charing Cross. Before the creation of Greater L ...

, Surrey on 22 February 2001.

References

External links

Dennis Cox
at

ESPNcricinfo 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 ...

Dennis Cox
at CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:Cox, Dennis 1925 births 2001 deaths People from Bermondsey Cricketers from Greater London English cricketers Surrey cricketers Cheshire cricketers English cricket administrators 20th-century British businesspeople