Leo Harrison, pre-war cricketer, dies at 94

Leo Harrison, one of the last two county cricketers to have made his first-class debut before the outbreak of the Second World War, has died in his home county of Dorset. He was 94.

Harrison, born in the fishing village of Mudeford in Dorset, made his county debut for Hampshire in 1939 as Europe prepared for war. He made 396 first-class appearances and his career flickered as late as 1966 thanks to an emergency return that season, as a coach, when he pulled on the wicketkeeping gloves for the last time.

At the start of the war, he joined the RAF, but failed the pilot's eyesight test and spent the war making flying instruments for Bomber Command. He played cricket in spectacles after the war, his poor eye sight not bad enough to halt his county career.

Harrison had a lifelong friendship with John Arlott, who he first knew as the village policeman, long before Arlott's Hampshire burr became one of cricket broadcasting's most famous voices.

John Manners, at 102, remains England's oldest living first-class cricketer - perhaps the world's - as well as the oldest member of MCC.

The careers of both men were celebrated in the 2016 edition of Wisden.