Born in a house backing onto Lord's, it was almost inevitable that John Carr would play for Middlesex, and given his background - Repton and Oxford, and son of the former TCCB secretary Donald - equally certain that he would end up working in cricket administration. Carr was a capable county batsman with a most extraordinary backlift which involved the bat being held vertically with the face pointing towards the wicketkeeper, all from a square-on stance. He was a Blue between 1983 and 1985 - at the same time he was playing Minor Counties cricket for Hertfordshire - and he was a regular member of the Middlesex side until 1989 when, after a loss of form which resulted in his being dropped for a month, he announced his retirement to go into banking. In 1992 he made a successful comeback, and in the final weeks of the 1994 season he embarked on a spectacular scoring spree with successive scores of 78*, 171*, 136, 106*, 40*, 62* and 261*. This also meant he pipped Brian Lara to top place in the national averages - despite the latter's 501* earlier that year. Carr is now the ECB's Director of Cricket, having retired - this time for good - in 1996 to enter cricket administration.
Martin Williamson