| Peter Barker Howard May, CBE (31 Dec 1929—27 Dec 1994) was an English cricketer who played for Surrey, Cambridge University and England. On 9th July 2009, Peter May was posthumously inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame. Born in Reading, Berkshire, he was educated at Charterhouse and Pembroke College, Cambridge, and at both he was regarded as a batting prodigy. Across the 1950s, he was the most consistent and prolific English batsman in both county (representing Surrey) and Test cricket. A right-handed batsman, he was a particularly strong driver, and was regarded by his contemporaries as the most graceful and complete batsman of his era.
He made his Test match debut against the South Africans at Headingley in 1951, scoring 138, and was then a regular England player until forced out by illness at the end of the 1950s.
May was the natural successor to Leonard Hutton as England captain after the successful defence of the Ashes on the 1954/55 tour of Australia, and he himself defended them successfully in 1956, when his Surrey colleagues Jim Laker and Tony Lock were the dominant bowlers.
The following year, May scored 285 not out and shared a world-record fourth-wicket partnership of 411 with Colin Cowdrey in the first match at Edgbaston. This world record stood until 2009, when Mahela Jayawardene and Thilan Samaraweera of Sri Lanka put on 437 in a match against Pakistan. With this monumental effort, May took control of the Test match series against the West Indies, seeing off the two highly feared spinners, Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine, who had taken the tourists to victory in the previous series in 1950.
May's captaincy of England ended in disappointment, though, with the loss of the Ashes in 1958/59 and 1961 against Australia. In all, May captained England on 41 occasions, winning 20 games, more victories than any other England captain until Michael Vaughan. He lost 10 and drew 11 games.
May was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1952. He was captain of Surrey from 1957 to 1962, winning the County Championship in his first two seasons, the final two victories in the record-breaking sequence of seven successive title wins from 1952 to 1958.May tried coming out of retirement in 1961, but was unsuccessful. He retired entirely from first-class cricket in 1963, taking up a post in the City.
May succeeded Alec Bedser as Chairman of the England cricket selectors in 1982 and held the post for seven years, including presiding over the notorious 1988 Summer of four captains. The reappointment of David Gower as captain for the disastrous 1989 Ashes series was widely seen as a mistake and precipitated May's departure from the role.
He served as President of the Marylebone Cricket Club and posthumously as President of Surrey CCC from 1995 to 1996.
He married Virginia Gilligan, a daughter of the former England captain Harold Gilligan. They had four daughters.
May died at Liphook, Hampshire from a brain tumour on the 27th of December 1994, 4 days before what would have been his 65th birthday.
May has a stand named after him (the Peter May Enclosure) at The Oval, Surrey, England.
Peter May was also an outstanding Eton Fives player, winning the Kinnaird Cup (effectively the national championship) three years running (from 1951 to 1953), partnered by his brother, J W H May. As a pair, the May brothers were invincible, and were never defeated.
An outstanding right-handed golfer, May was reputed to have become bored with the game, bought a set of left-handed clubs and became a scratch golfer both left and right-handed.
May is mentioned in the Peter Hammill song "(No More) The Sub-Mariner", from the 1974 album In Camera.
Career Statistics
|
Tests
|
Runs
|
Avg.
|
50’s
|
100’s
|
Hs.
|
Catches
|
|
66
|
4537
|
46.77
|
22
|
11
|
285*
|
42
|
|
