Norman Ian Thomson (23 January 1929 – 1 August 2021) 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 str ...

er who played in five Tests for

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in 1964 and 1965. Thomson was only weeks away from his 36th birthday when he was selected for Test duties, a recognition of his performances in county cricket.

Life and career

Born 23 January 1929 in

Walsall Walsall (, or ; locally ) is a market town and administrative centre in the West Midlands County, England. Historically part of Staffordshire, it is located north-west of Birmingham, east of Wolverhampton and from Lichfield. Walsall is th ...

, Staffordshire, Thomson grew up in

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

. After he finished his

National Service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The ...

, his family moved to Sussex, where he joined the county team, playing his first match in 1952. A medium-fast right-arm swing and seam bowler of accuracy and consistency, and a lower-order batsman, he soon became a regular member of the team. He took more than 100 wickets in every season from 1953 to 1964. The later part of Thomson's career coincided with the first one-day competition. He picked up the

man of the match In team sport, a player of the match or man of the match or woman of the match award is often given to the most outstanding player in a particular match. This can be a player from either team, although the player is generally chosen from the winn ...

award in the 1964 Gillette Cup final, when Sussex beat Warwickshire. He was picked for the 1964–65

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 ...

(MCC) tour to South Africa, which was led by the Warwickshire captain, M. J. K. Smith. He played in all five Tests on the tour, and was used largely as a stock bowler, with the spinners Fred Titmus and David Allen taking most wickets. A spate of injuries on the tour led to a call-up for

Ken Palmer Kenneth Ernest Palmer (born 22 April 1937) is an English former cricketer and umpire, who played in one Test match in 1965, and umpired 22 Tests and 23 One Day Internationals from 1977 to 2001. He was born in Winchester, Hampshire. Playing c ...

, who was coaching locally, and

Geoffrey Boycott Sir Geoffrey Boycott (born 21 October 1940) is a former Test cricketer, who played cricket for Yorkshire and England. In a prolific and sometimes controversial playing career from 1962 to 1986, Boycott established himself as one of England's m ...

was also used as a bowler. Thomson took nine wickets in the five Tests, only four more than Boycott. This was not Thomson's only overseas experience with MCC. In 1955–56 he had toured Pakistan with the side led by

Donald Carr Donald Bryce Carr OBE (28 December 1926 – 12 June 2016) was an English cricketer who played for Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the so ...

, which played only "unofficial" Tests: in fact, he appeared in none of these matches, and played only four matches on the tour. Thomson retired after the 1965 English season, though he reappeared in two matches in 1972, when Sussex had an injury crisis. In 1961, he scored 780 runs in the season at an average of more than 20, and in several other years he contributed more than 500 runs. In January 2021, following the death of Donald Smith, Thomson became England's oldest living Test cricketer. Thomson died at his home in

Henfield Henfield is a large village and civil parish in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England. It lies south of London, northwest of Brighton, and east northeast of the county town of Chichester at the road junction of the A281 and A2037. Th ...

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ...

, on 1 August 2021, aged 92.

References

* ''

Wisden ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

'', 1953 to 1966 editions

External links

*
Ian Thomson
at Sussex Cricket Museum

at CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:Thomson, Ian 1929 births 2021 deaths England Test cricketers English cricketers Sussex cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers North v South cricketers International Cavaliers cricketers Sportspeople from Walsall Cricketers who have taken ten wickets in an innings A. E. R. Gilligan's XI cricketers