Graham Anthony Richard Lock (5 July 1929 – 30 March 1995) 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 primarily as a left-arm

spinner Technology *Spinner (aeronautics), the aerodynamic cone at the hub of an aircraft propeller * Spinner (cell culture), laboratory equipment for cultivating plant or mammalian cells * Spinner (computing), a graphical widget in a GUI * Spinner (MIT Med ...

. He played in forty nine 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 ...

taking 174 wickets at 25.58 each. Lock took 2,844 first-class wickets, placing him ninth on the all-time list, and is the only player to score more than 10,000 runs without once making a century; despite passing fifty on 27 occasions, his highest score was 89, made in a Test in Guyana. His tally of 831 catches in

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 officia ...

, mostly taken at short leg, lies behind only

W.G. Grace William Gilbert Grace (18 July 1848 – 23 October 1915) was an English amateur cricketer who was important in the development of the sport and is widely considered one of its greatest players. He played first-class cricket for a record-equal ...

and

Frank Woolley Frank Edward Woolley (27 May 1887 – 18 October 1978) was an English professional cricketer who played for Kent County Cricket Club between 1906 and 1938 and for the England cricket team. A genuine all-rounder, Woolley was a left-handed batsman ...

Life and career

Born in

Limpsfield Limpsfield is a village and civil parish in Surrey, England, at the foot of the North Downs close to Oxted railway station and the A25.

, Surrey, Tony Lock had the weighty backing of HDG Leveson Gower and made his first-class debut for Surrey County Cricket Club at just seventeen years and eight days old on 13 July 1946, which made him the youngest ever to play for the county. However he did not play regularly until 1949. In 1951 he took 105 wickets, and broke the 100-wicket barrier every year up to and including 1962, on two occasions (1955 and 1957) claiming more than 200 victims. Lock made his England debut in the third

Test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film), ...

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 ...

in 1952, and played the fourth and fifth Tests against Australia the following summer; he had in fact been picked for the first game, but had worn his spinning finger raw after being named in the team and had had to withdraw while it healed. However, England regained

the Ashes The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. The term originated in a satirical obituary published in a British newspaper, '' The Sporting Times'', immediately after Australia's 1882 victory at The Oval, its first ...

and for his efforts Lock was named one of

Wisden Cricketers of the Year The ''Wisden'' Cricketers of the Year are cricketers selected for the honour by the annual publication ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', based primarily on their "influence on the previous English season". The award began in 1889 with the naming ...

in the 1954 edition of Wisden's Almanack. However, he also had to deal with accusations (not entirely unfounded) that he was a ' chucker', being called for throwing on more than one occasion. This was one of the grudges that many had against him, the other was his consistent Test selection over

Johnny Wardle Johnny Wardle (8 January 1923 – 23 July 1985) was an English spin bowling cricketer whose Test Match career lasted between 1948 and 1957. His Test bowling average of 20.39 is the lowest in Test cricket by any recognised spin bowler since ...

of Yorkshire. In 1956, Lock was famously the bowler who took "the other wicket" when

Jim Laker James Charles Laker (9 February 1922 – 23 April 1986) was an English professional cricketer who played for Surrey County Cricket Club from 1946 to 1959 and represented England in 46 Test matches. He was born in Shipley, West Riding of York ...

achieved his world-record 19–90 at Old Trafford against Australia, and two years later had an extraordinary summer of success against an admittedly poor

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

side, finishing with 34 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 a mere 7.47. He was inconsistent abroad, however, failing completely on the 1958/59 tour of Australia, but again terrorising the New Zealanders in the same winter, with 13 wickets at under nine runs apiece. It was during the New Zealand leg of the tour that he saw himself on film. Shocked by what he saw, he remodelled his action. By 1961, he was back in the Test side against Australia. Dropped for the 1962-63 Ashes series he played with great success for Western Australia, returning to play for that state each winter for the rest of his career. Lock moved to Leicestershire in 1965, and was made captain for the following two seasons, taking the club to second place in the

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 ...

in 1967. In 1967/68 he was unexpectedly recalled by England because of an injury to Fred Titmus, and played in the last two Tests against

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

. He was the last man called up to play for England who was not playing for a first-class county. Though not achieving any great success with the ball, he contributed to the cause in another way, by making his highest first-class score of 89 in the first innings of the final Test at Georgetown, Guyana. England had nine wickets down when the game (played over six days) finished, and claimed the series 1–0. Lock's remaining playing career was spent entirely with Western Australia, and fittingly his last first-class wicket was that of an Australian Test player,

Paul Sheahan Andrew Paul Sheahan (born 30 September 1946) is a former Australian international cricketer who played 31 Test matches and three One Day Internationals as an opening and middle order batsman between 1967 and 1973. He made his first-class deb ...

Retirement

After retirement he moved into coaching in

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...

and London, but late in life faced two separate charges of sexual abuse. In December 1993 he was found not guilty by a 10–2 majority of indecently assaulting a fifteen-year-old girl after inviting her to his home for a bowling lesson in 1987. The following day he was charged with four counts of indecent assault on a girl aged under thirteen.''Tony Lock faces new sex assault charges'',

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

, 2 December 1993 He was again cleared, but the experience affected him badly. He died from cancer in his adopted home town of

at the age of 65.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lock, Tony English cricketers England Test cricketers English cricketers of 1946 to 1968 Leicestershire cricket captains Leicestershire cricketers Surrey cricketers Combined Services cricketers Western Australia cricketers Wisden Cricketers of the Year 1929 births 1995 deaths Deaths from cancer in Western Australia English emigrants to Australia Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers People acquitted of sex crimes Players cricketers North v South cricketers Cricketers who have taken ten wickets in an innings A. E. R. Gilligan's XI cricketers T. N. Pearce's XI cricketers