Thomas Cuthbert Longfield (12 May 1906 – 21 December 1981) 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. He 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 several teams including

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 ...

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ke ...

and

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

. Longfield was born at

High Halstow High Halstow is a village and civil parish on the Hoo Peninsula in the unitary authority of Medway in South East England. It was, until 1998, administratively part of Kent and is still ceremonially associated via the Lieutenancies Act. The par ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

and educated at Aldenham School where he played in the cricket XI.Longfield, Thomas Cuthbert
Obituaries in 1981, ''

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''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 ...

'', 1982. Retrieved 25 October 2018. He went to

and won cricket Blues in 1927 and 1928, making a total of 25 first-class appearances for the University side. He made his Kent debut in the 1927 University vacation and went on to play a total of 40 times for the county First XI, playing his last county match in 1939.Tom Longfield
CricketArchive. Retrieved 25 October 2018. After leaving Cambridge, Longfield worked for

Andrew Yule and Company Andrew Yule & Co. Ltd. is an Indian manufacturing and industrial conglomerate, primarily owned by the Indian Government. It is the main company owned by the Yule Group. It is currently headquartered in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), and has off ...

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

in India, the city where his father had worked for

Royal Insurance Royal Insurance Holdings plc was a large insurance business originating in Liverpool but based in London from the early 20th century. It merged with Sun Alliance in 1996 to form the Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Group. History Formation and e ...

.Return to roots
''

The Telegraph (Calcutta) ''The Telegraph'' is an Indian English daily newspaper founded and continuously published in Kolkata since 7 July 1982. It is published by the ABP Group and the newspaper competes with ''The Times of India''. The newspaper is the eighth most-wid ...

'', 3 January 2009. Retrieved 25 October 2018.Basu R (2012
Ted loses toss on Test-eve
''

'', 5 December 2012. Retrieved 25 October 2018. He was able to play for Kent only when he returned to England on leave. He played for a variety of teams whilst in India, including the

Europeans Europeans are the focus of European ethnology, the field of anthropology related to the various ethnic groups that reside in the states of Europe. Groups may be defined by common genetic ancestry, common language, or both. Pan and Pfeil (2004) ...

and Bengal. He captained Bengal to their first

Ranji Trophy The Ranji Trophy (also known as Mastercard Ranji Trophy for sponsorship reasons) is a domestic first-class cricket championship played in India between multiple teams representing regional and state cricket associations. Board of Control for Cr ...

win in 1938/39,Dutta RP (2008
Half-century hurrah at home - Ted Dexter and wife return to roots for 50-year marriage celebrations
''

'', 30 December 2008. Retrieved 25 October 2018.Mukherji R (2015) ''Eden Gardens Legend & Romance'', pp.106–107. Kolkata Today.
Available online
Retrieved 25 October 2018.)Chakrabaty S (2012
Kolkata’s favourite son-in-law returns
''

Indian Express ''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932. It is published in Mumbai by the Indian Express Group. In 1999, eight years after the group's founder Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, the group was split betw ...

'', 4 December 2012. Retrieved 25 October 2018. and took a

hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three wic ...

for the side in 1936/37 against

Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Be ...

.First-Class Hat-Trick in India by Player
Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. Retrieved 25 October 2018. He was involved with the Calcutta Cricket Club whilst living in India, captaining the team for a timeMitra A (2011
A death in London - The distinct flavour of Calcutta's fading colonial phase
''

'', 20 June 2011. Retrieved 25 October 2018. and was President of the club three times.History
Calcutta Cricket and Football Club. Retrieved 25 October 2018.Past Presidents
Calcutta Cricket and Football Club. Retrieved 25 October 2018. He was a major influence in the

Cricket Association of Bengal Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) is the governing body for cricket in the Indian state of West Bengal. Its headquarters are located in the Eden Gardens stadium, Kolkata. It is a full member of Board of Control for Cricket in India. It gover ...

.Mukherji ''op. cit.'', pp.27–28. In his '' Wisden'' obituary, Longfield was described as having been "an orthodox, old-fashioned medium-pace bowler" who "possessed a beautiful action, kept a good length, and could move the ball both ways". He was third in the Cambridge

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 ...

s in 1927 taking 46 wickets, followed by 44 in 1928, although for Kent he was "curiously ineffective" as a bowler. As a batsman he scored two centuries for Cambridge, the only first-class hundreds he scored, and was described as "a good stroke-player who could score quickly, mostly in front of the wicket" who went on to play "some useful innings" for Kent. He was second in the Cambridge batting averages in 1927. Longfield's daughter Susan, who was born in Calcutta whilst Longfield worked in India and was a successful model, married Ted Dexter in 1959. He later captained the

England cricket team The England cricket team represents England and Wales in international cricket. Since 1997, it has been governed by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), having been previously governed by Marylebone Cricket Club (the MCC) since 1903. Engla ...

. His brother, Geoffrey Longfield, played two first-class matches for the RAF. Longfield died at

Ealing Ealing () is a district in West London, England, west of Charing Cross in the London Borough of Ealing. Ealing is the administrative centre of the borough and is identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan. Ealing was histor ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

in 1981 aged 75.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Longfield, Tom 1906 births 1981 deaths English cricketers Bengal cricketers Cambridge University cricketers Europeans cricketers Kent cricketers Sportspeople from Kent Gentlemen cricketers Free Foresters cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI cricketers People from Medway Viceroy's XI cricketers

See also

References

External links