Former England Test captain Ted Dexter dies aged 86

Obviously a fine player, I always thought he could have achieved a lot more, but retired when he was only about 30, then made a short comeback a few years later.
Never saw him play live, but many times on TV, as he followed the usual path to England captaincy in those days, Oxford/ Cambridge, then captaining a county side for a couple of years, before getting the England role.
We had such a strong middle order in the late fifties, with Dexter eventually at no3, taking over from Peter May, with Cowdrey and Barrington to follow.
He was a very hard hitting batsmen, pretty much a trailblazer in those days, becoming the talisman, frequently coming in, and smashing 60s and 70s, without necessarily going on to make that many centuries.
However, I do remember him making a 180, and 170 odd against Australia, and a 200 in either India or Pakistan, which contradicts what I have just said, a little!
He was certainly the personality batsman of the early sixties, his style seemed to different from other English batsman, playing attacking, quick scoring innings, with fierce cover drives his specialty.
I remember as a school boy coming home to watch the 1961 Ashes series, and on the last day at Old Trafford, England needed about 240 to win, with Dexter hammering the Australian bowling, at one stage about 150-1, with Dexter on 70, seemingly winning the game on his own,.
He was then out, England collapsed, with Richie Benaud running through rest of the batsmen.
A year or two later, he hit another 70 odd in one famous innings against the great 60s West Indies side of Hall, Griffiths, Sobers and Kanhai, who won the series.
Dexter invariably became captain, with mixed results, and despite having Boycott, Dexter, Cowdrey, Barrington, Trueman and Statham, we couldn’t win the Ashes.
He had plenty of outside interests, fond of the horses, and I can recall that he was an excellent golfer, had a model wife, and could pilot his own plane!
He even took a break from cricket, standing as an unsuccessful Tory candidate in the 1964 election, so it was probably an omen that he wasn’t going to be around as a Test cricketer for too long.
He played for Sussex, who won the first two one day county knock out competition, largely due to Dexter’s innovative captaincy, and tactical skills in the new format.
He retired following a bizzare accident, when his car rolled back on him, breaking his leg in the process, but by then had given up the England captaincy.
He then made a brief comback in 1968, withThe Ashes at stake, mid way through the series,
Such was his reputation, that after paying a few county games was recalled, but failed to make much of a an impact, having not played cricket for three years.
Not many players would have even been brought back in those circumstances!
He was certainly a one off, a big game player, who probably became bored with with the county cricket circuit,.
He didn’t have a long playing career unlike most of his contemporaries, such as Graveney, Illingworth, Cowdrey and Barrington, but did become a cricket journalist, and commentator, then England selector in later years.