Sir Leonard Hutton was born in Fulneck in Yorkshire. He was an English cricketer who had dominated the national as well as the international cricket field for a decade after the Second World War. He was honored with the England team captaincy. In August 2009, Len Hutton was inducted with the ICC Cricket Gall of Fame.
Hutton used to play cricket at an early age and became a keen student of the batting art and techniques. Hutton learned these techniques from players like Herbert Sutcliffe, Wilfred Rhodes, Hedley Verity, Brain Sellers and Bill Bowes. His first class debut was in 1934 for Yorkshire team at the age of 17 for 14 championship matches during that season. During this season, he scored 5 half centuries and made his maiden first class century too. He made his test match debut in 1937 against New Zealand and was dismissed for a duck in his first innings. This right hand batsman and right arm leg break bowler scored 364 runs in test matches which is the highest test innings by an Englishman. This was in 1938 against Australia. The following year he thrilled the spectators with 196 runs against West Indies in the Lord’s test match.
| Role | All Rounder |
| Born | 23 Jun 1916 |
| Died | 6 Sep 1990 (74 years) |
| Nationality |
United Kingdom
|
| Team History | |
England
|
1937 - 1955 |
Sir Leonard Hutton died due to a ruptured aorta in Surrey in Kingston Hospital in 1990 at the age of 74. He was married to Dorothy Dennis in 1939 and had two sons, Richard Hutton, a successful cricketer for Repton and Ben Hutton, who captained Middlesex between 2005 and 2006.
Career highlights
He has played in 79 test matches, scored 6971 runs at an average of 56.67 with 19 hundreds. His first class cricket statistics show him scoring 40140 runs at an average of 55.51 with 129 hundreds.
In 1956, he was knighted for his utmost services to the cricket sport. Hutton was appointed as a selector of the England test team in 1975. He gave up this role after the 1976 season. Overall, he was a true and a great cricketer and was ranked with some of the finest 20th century English batsmen like Wally Hammond, Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe.
