Obituary: Ken Deas

Cricket player, administrator. Born Papatoetoe, July 10, 1927. Died Middlemore, October 20, aged 73.

Cricket in Auckland and New Zealand lost a great worker when Ken Deas died late last week. And this country's cricket lost an even more precious asset - a man who could see good humour, and good fellowship, as essential to the game he loved.

Smiles and sad echoes around his native Papatoetoe will also reverberate around the lovely field at Raeburn in Edinburgh.

It was there, last year as New Zealand played a World Cup pool match against Scotland, that a tall, craggy and wrinkled Scot inquired of the health and happiness of Mr Deas, the wee Kiwi with the sense of humour.

During his OE in the 1950s with his wife Marie, Ken Deas plied his pharmacy trade in Edinburgh, played for Scotland in 1955 and 1956, and the memories of the man with the love for cricket and his sense of humour obviously lived on.

In fact, Deas' careers as a player and then selector and administrator were marked just as much by his humour as his later ability to take great pains over the detail of his administrative and selecting duties.

He learned the vagaries of humour in his first match with Auckland.

Deas was 12th man for an Auckland side destroyed by the batting (97 runs) and wrist-spin (11 wickets for 49) of none other than Denis Compton.

Deas' ambition to play cricket at the highest level was tempered by the fact that this was a good time to be 12th man, and he rejoiced that he had escaped the disaster, especially when Auckland lost their last seven first-innings wickets to Compton's unusual left-hand wrist-spin, for only 13 runs.

The match finished early, a batting exhibition was provided to keep the spectators happy and Deas' private fund of happiness ran out. He was pressed into bowling his left-arm slows, and my father insisted we move to safety from the shellfire corner of the terraces.

Between then and 1961, Deas played only 16 matches for Auckland, for in the 50s other outstanding players had emerged while Deas was overseas.

During his later years as an Auckland and New Zealand selector, Deas (especially with Frank Cameron as his national ally) was a consistent and astute selector.

Just as, with another firm friend, the late Gordon Burgess who died last month, Deas formed a formidable administrative partnership, much to the benefit of Auckland, Eden Park and national cricket.

All the time he showed his persuasive powers, his dedication to detail - and with his sense of good humour still intact.

Ken Deas is survived by his wife Marie and children Alison, Murray, Heather and Fiona.

- D.J. CAMERON