Full Name

Aidan Merivale Crawley

Born

April 10, 1908, Benenden, Kent

Died

November 03, 1993, Banbury, Oxfordshire, (aged 85y 207d)

Batting Style

Right hand Bat

Bowling Style

Right arm Medium, Right arm Offbreak

Education

Harrow School; Oxford University

RELATIONS

(grandson),

(father),

(cousin),

(brother),

(cousin)

Aidan Crawley MBE, who died on November 3, 1993, aged 85, was one of seven members of his family, Harrovians all, to play first-class cricket, and perhaps the most brilliant. His 87 against Eton at Lord's in 1926 was widely regarded as the best innings in the match for many years. In Wisden, H. S. Altham called him a beautiful player. In 1928 he broke the Oxford scoring record, with 1,137 runs (average 54.14) and five hundreds, including 167 against Essex and 162 against Surrey. In 1929, he made 204 against Northamptonshire at Wellingborough with ten sixes and 22 fours, apparently having driven to the ground straight from an Oxford ball. For the Gentlemen at Lord's he hit A. P. Freeman over the old free seats on to the Nursery End. He played 33 matches for Kent, mostly in 1931 and 1932, but his subsequent career took him off in many different directions, most of them distinguished, some contradictory: he was Labour MP for Buckingham (rising to be Under-Secretary of State for Air in 1951) and, having grown disillusioned with nationalisation, Conservative MP for West Derbyshire. He was also a pioneering documentary film-maker, a fighter pilot, a PoW who staged a spectacular if brief escape, the biographer of de Gaulle and an early TV personality, as presenter of the 1950s series Viewfinder. In 1955 he became the first head of Independent Television News, where he encouraged the then novel idea of probing questions, and he was later the first chairman of London Weekend Television. He retained his cricketing connections, was president of MCC in 1972-73, chairman of the National Cricket Association for its first seven years and one of the begetters of the National Village Championship. His perseverance did not always match his versatility and panache. The last years of this handsome, gilded figure were clouded with tragedy: his wife was killed in a car crash and his two sons in a plane crash.
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack

Aidan Crawley Career Stats

Batting & Fielding

FormatMatInnsNORunsHSAve100s50sCtSt
FC871416506120437.481124440

Bowling

FormatMatBallsRunsWktsBBIAveEconSR5w10w
FC87949565152/4037.663.5763.200

Debut/Last Matches of Aidan Crawley

FC Matches

Span
1927 - 1949