Ben Brocklehurst played life
much as he did cricket: with drive,
energy, optimism and courage.
There were no half measures.
When the ball came his way his
first instinct was to hit it hard.
When a good idea occurred to him
or someone else, his reaction was
invariably: "OK. Let's give it a go."
A handsome and commanding
figure of strapping physique
whose pink face, ready smile and
jovial mien masked a shrewd
business brain, he was farming
a herd of pedigree cattle in
Berkshire when he was asked
to captain Somerset in 1953.
Well known in amateur circles
as a powerful and entertaining
batsman who hit the ball
prodigious distances even in the
days of lighter bats, he was unable
to lift the county off the bottom
of the table in his two seasons as
captain but still made an indelible
mark on the game when he bought
The Cricketer magazine in 1972.
Not only did his acumen save
the then fortnightly periodical
from probable extinction but
under his command its circulation
more than doubled and he made
it the base of a successful business
enterprise run from his home near
Tunbridge Wells.
As a schoolboy at Bradfield
he was an outstanding athlete,
winner of the discus and the
high jump and victor ludorum
in the public schools sports at
White City. He played football,
squash and tennis for the school
and captained the cricket XI by
inspired example in the field in
1940. He had made 480 runs at
40.11 the previous season, hitting
24 in an over against Lancing.
In minor cricket his most
famous feat was a rampaging
double-hundred, including 17
sixes, against Hampshire in a
benefit match at Hartley Wintney.
Always a rapid scorer, he was a
potential matchwinner in any
game he played for his various
wandering clubs, the Bradfield
Waifs, I Zingari, Free Foresters
and Arabs. My first memory of
him was when he batted against
Marlborough for RJO Meyer's XI,
hitting a barnstorming 70-odd in
which he repeatedly drove the ball
over the sightscreen.
In his two seasons for Somerset
he made 1,671 runs at 15.61,
including 89 against the Pakistan
touring team in 1954, an innings
in which he was comfortably on
course for the fastest hundred
of the season and the Walter
Lawrence trophy. One can imagine
him putting heart and soul
into the challenge of lifting a
weak team and not holding back
in the evenings. Defeats were
commonplace but they managed
two wins in both his seasons and,
when they needed only nine in the
second innings to beat Middlesex
at Lord's in 1953, Ben savoured the
unusual experience by insisting
that the pitch should be rolled for
the statutory seven minutes.
A similarly indomitable spirit
marked everything he did. He
joined the army after leaving
school, serving with the 10th
Devons and then switching to
the Indian Army. On leave in
Kashmir he had a nasty hunting
encounter with a bear, when
he was badly mauled, but he
recovered to serve in Burma with
the 14th/12th Frontier Force. He
commanded a division of Pathans
and was mentioned in dispatches
following action in Lower Burma
before, as an acting lieutenantcolonel
at the age of only 24,
being put in charge of 2,000
Japanese prisoners on Magwe
Island off the Arakan Coast.
Unable to make any profit
from farming, he joined the
magazine group Mercury House,
who acquired The Cricketer,
founded by Pelham Warner in
1921, from the book publishers
Hutchinson. When his managing
director, an American, decided
in 1972 that the magazine should
be closed down for lack of profit
he bought the title himself, for
the good of the game as much
as for himself. The takeover of
the rival Playfair Cricket Monthly
enhanced a circulation of 15,000.
The Cricketer's circulation reached
40,000 in the 1980s despite hardnosed
decisions by the proprietor
to keep editorial costs down
and the cover price in line with
inflation.
After the successful launch of
The Cricketer Cup for school oldboy
teams in 1967, Ben started
several more competitions for
amateur cricketers, all at one
stage administered by local
ladies working from outbuildings
at their Kent home. The most
notable was the National Village
Championship which attracted
around 1,000 villages at its peak
in the 1980s and which still has
a final at Lord's as its abiding
dream. Ambridge, home of The
Archers, got through a mythical
round this year.
With the English Schools
Cricket Association and the
Lord's Taverners - he was the link
between the two - he started
the Lord's Taverners Schools
Trophy for boys aged 14 and 15.
At its peak it had an entry of
between 1,300 and 1,500 schools,
bringing independent and state
schools together, and it still goes
strongly. Although he could not
persuade the administrators of
English cricket to let The Cricketer
become involved, it was Ben's idea,
proposed to the MCC secretary Billy
Griffith shortly before its inception
in 1975, to start a World Cup. The
tournament's immediate success
both pleased and irritated the man
who had sown the first seed.
He and his devoted second wife,
Belinda, were wonderful hosts to
countless cricketing visitors as
well as local friends. Editorial and
board meetings were quickly held
before the main business of the
day, a magnificent lunch, often
held in an elegant summer house
in their fine garden.
He is survived by Belinda and
his four children. His daughter
Charmaine married the England
cricketer, Richard Hutton, who
became editor of The Cricketer.
Their elder son, Ben, opened the
batting for Radley with Andrew
Strauss and has captained
Middlesex. Brocklehurst's main
life's work, The Cricketer, lives still
in spirit as the joint parent of The
Wisden Cricketer, following the
merger with Wisden Cricket Monthly
in 2003.
Christopher Martin-Jenkins, The Wisden Cricketer
