Tom Dean

DEAN, THOMAS ARTHUR, died on June 4, 2004, aged 83. A tall leg-spinner who was born in Gosport but grew up in South Africa, Tom Dean made a sensational start to his county career at 18, taking four wickets in five balls in only his second match for Hampshire, against Worcestershire at Bournemouth late in 1939. He had a burst of five wickets for eight runs in the next game, against Yorkshire, and finished the season on top of Hampshire's bowling averages, with ten wickets at 22.20. But war intervened, and the magic disappeared. Dean took only 21 wickets in 13 games in 1946, although that did include a career-best seven for 51 (and ten for 129 in the match) against Derbyshire at Ilkeston. A fine fielder among many more ponderous movers, against Essex in 1947 he took seven catches in the match, "four of them brilliant" according to his captain, Desmond Eagar. Dean left Hampshire in 1949, after three unproductive seasons, to run a pub in Torquay and perform prodigiously in club cricket for Newton Abbot, before returning to South Africa in 1955 to coach. He spent 23 years at Grey High School in Port Elizabeth, where several talented youngsters, including Graeme Pollock, came under his eye. Dean once observed that "I must take the credit for not coaching Graeme - he was a freak and was best left to develop on his own." He was also Eastern Province's director of coaching for six years.
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack