Plucked from the relative obscurity of Lancashire club cricket to captain his county in 1947, Kenneth Cranston made an immediate impression at first-class level, averaging close to 40 with the bat and 23 with the ball. Tall and lithe, he was a natural games player. An aggressive right hand bat, with three first-class centuries, he usually opened the bowling at a brisk fast-medium. He was rewarded with a Test cap against South Africa in 1947 after only 13 first-class appearances - in his second match at Headingley he polished off South Africa's second innings with four wickets in six balls (W.W.WW). That winter he toured the West Indies under Gubby Allen as vice-captain. Allen was injured on board ship, and Cranston captained the side in the first Test, which was drawn. Injury-hit and by no means a full-strength touring party, England struggled on this tour, and Cranston dropped out of contention in 1948, playing just once against the all-conquering Australian tourists. At the end of the 1948 season Cranston resigned as captain of Lancashire, unable to balance the commitments of first-class cricket and his dental practice. Apart from a few appearances in festival matches, it was the end of a very promising first-class career.
Martin Williamson
Ken Cranston was matched only
by CB Fry and Wilson of The Wizard
for the breadth of his achievements
in addition to his performances as a
first-class cricketer. In a startlingly
brief career he captained his county
and his country at cricket and
played 51 times for Lancashire at
hockey. For 11 days, following the
death of Mandy Mitchell-Innes,
Cranston was England's oldest
surviving Test cricketer.
Selected to play cricket for
Liverpool University, he completed
an exam on the morning of the
match, then hurried to the ground
to find that Birmingham University
had reduced his side to 82 for 6.
He went out at the fall of the next
wicket to hit fifty in his first 10
minutes at the crease. He completed
a whirlwind 128 before the
declaration at 320 for 9.
Cranston served as a dental
officer in the Navy during the war
but continued to play cricket both
for the Navy and the Combined
Services. When Jack Fallows was not
re-engaged as Lancashire captain for
the 1947 season Cranston took leave
of absence from the Aigburth dental
practice he shared with his father
and was appointed in his place.
He was the personification of the
dashing, handsome amateur captain
but not even Cyril Washbrook at his
most curmudgeonly could disparage
Cranston's immediate impact.
In his first season he made 1,228
runs at an average of 33.18, took
84 wickets at a cost of 22.54 runs
each and was called up for the last
three Tests of the series against
South Africa. In his second match,
at Headingley, he bowled his now
legendary quadruple wicket maiden,
cleaning up South Africa's second
innings and finishing with 4 for
12. His Test career came to a sad if
symmetrical end at Headingley the
following year when Cranston was
as helpless as the rest of the England
attack to prevent Australia from
scoring 404 for 3 on the final day.
Don Bradman, having made an
unbeaten 173 to win the match,
might not have been impressed by
Cranston's brisk medium pace or
his last innings, in which he was caught behind for a duck off Bill
Johnston, but legend has it that he
was keen on a free consultation
about his teeth with the Lancashire
allrounder.
In the intervening close season
Cranston had toured the West
Indies as Gubby Allen's vice-captain
and, when the 45-year-old leader,
in the glorious tradition of injured
England captains, pulled a muscle
on the journey to the Caribbean,
Cranston, who had been playing
club cricket the previous year, led
out his country in the first Test
at the Kensington Oval, holding a
strong home side to a draw. It was to
be a one off: Allen returned for the
next Test and Cranston never again
captained England. His best bowling
performance came in the third Test
at Georgetown, when he dismissed
both Clyde Walcott and Everton
Weekes in his analysis of 4 for 78.
Lancashire had finished third
in the Championship in 1947 but
slipped two places the following
year. Cranston's figures were still
impressive. He scored another
thousand runs at 33.21 and took a
further 79 wickets at an average of
27.06 but somehow the attraction of
days in the sun had diminished and
the siren song of the dentist's drill
was too tempting. He continued to
work in his chosen profession until
1990.
The cricket correspondent of the
Manchester Evening News felt that,
despite his elegant appearance and
amateur status, "judged solely as a
captain Cranston did not quite make
the grade". The Lancashire dressing
room in 1947 and 1948 contained
some hard-bitten professionals
who would have resented the
skipper's close relationship with
the committee and his failure to
consult them as often as they would
have wished. This was hardly a
situation unique to Lancashire but
Cranston had never seen himself as
anything more than a temporary
first-class cricketer and he returned
to dentistry content with his firstclass
career.
He emerged briefly in 1949 to
play at the Scarborough Festival
where, batting as low as No.8,
he scored a scintillating 156 not out
for MCC against the joint champions
Yorkshire, including a rapid eighthwicket
partnership of 127 with Denis Compton. He played his final
first-class match for HDG Leveson-
Gower against the 1950 West Indies
at the same venue.
He continued to play league
cricket for Neston and occasionally
for MCC and the Free Foresters.
He was greatly liked around Old
Trafford and served as president of
Lancashire in 1993-94.
Colin Schindler, The Wisden Cricketer