Kenneth Charles Preston (22 August 1925 – 6 January 2019) 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 for

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 G ...

between 1948 and 1964. Preston was born in

Goodmayes Goodmayes is a district of Ilford in the London Borough of Redbridge, England. It is situated eleven miles north-east of Charing Cross, and forms part of both the Romford and Ilford post towns. Historically part of Essex, it was part of the Muni ...

and served with the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

during World War 2, taking part in the

Normandy Landings The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...

as a landing craft crew member. He made his first-class cricket debut in 1948 and impressed as a fast bowler in his first season. During the following winter he broke his leg playing football and missed the entire 1949 cricket season. When he resumed playing in 1950 he had lost some of his bowling speed but regained form and full fitness by 1951 and bowled well for the next three seasons. After losing form again and being dropped in 1954 Preston concentrated on accuracy rather than pace, and performed consistently until his retirement at the end of the 1964 season. His best season was 1957, when he took 140 wickets 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 20 runs each. After retiring from playing he coached cricket at Brentwood School.

References

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* 1925 births 2019 deaths English cricketers Essex cricketers People from Ilford Cricketers from the London Borough of Redbridge Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Players cricketers Royal Navy personnel of World War II {{England-cricket-bio-1920s-stub