RIP Mike Procter

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

One of the great genuine all-rounders - a match winner with bat and ball, whose had the amazing achievement of taking a hat-trick of LBWs bowling around the wicket.  He was always worth watching when Gloucestershire turned up on the TV on the Sunday League

[Peter]

I don't think many will know just how good he was because his career was blighted by the (imo correct) banning of South Africa from international cricket.  He had a Test bowling average of 15 (fifteen) and all against Australia, I think and a first class bowling average of 19.  That's better than Fred Trueman, I think.  I certainly didn't know that.  Even  Malcolm Marshall's average in tests was about 20. 

RIP.

[Wowbagger]

Sad about that. A very fine all-rounder. And a very fine person.

But what is a Test career compared to the suffering of 40 million people? Lots of people lost a great deal more in those years, and if by missing out on a Test career we played a part in changing an unjust system, then that is fine by me.

I think I must have seen him play* - I watched a lot of cricket in the 1970s - but I can't remember a specific day or match. I think he found Essex a particularly fertile place to demonstrate his prodigious skills. I think he took 2 hat-tricks against the Essex team.

*Edit: almost certainly this one as Southchurch Park is only about a 5 minute walk from where I was teaching at the time and I always went to the ground for the final session when Essex were playing there. I see he took 7-45 in the Essex second innings, including Ken McEwan and Graham Gooch for lbw ducks.