Compton had the grace and panache of a panther

Sharm de Alwis

Keith Miller would think that Compton's leg glance was as alluring as Princess Margaret's face.But there was more than a glance in Compton's make-up. He was the gay cavalier of England's cricket, the Golden Boy, the heart-throb and model in Brylcream ads through the years.

Denis Compton was to England what Keith Miller was to Australia, Everton Weekes to West Indies and Sathasivam to us - mercurial, majestic and magnificient.

The sweep

Compton as much as the other three had the grace and panache of the panther. His was orthodox batsmanship but he improvised a few strokes. He gave the world the sweep. He would step lightly down the crease to despatch spinners to the ropes. He could tear apart to shreds the best of bowling and the men who tossed the red cherry at him were fearsome as they came in awesome splendour - Keith Miller, Ray Lindwall, Alan Davidson, Heine, Goddards and Fuller, King and Holt apart from the wily merchants of spin.

Pace or spin, he had the artillery to cope with the best and he could himself toss down a few worthy mystery deliveries to bamboozle the batsmen.

It was Lords, the Mecca of cricket that Compton marked to herald his arrival at the tender age of fourteen when he scored a carefree, brilliant innings for C.F. Tuffnel's Xl.

Within four years he burst into the cricket firmament, ousting, in the process, the doughty, pugnacious Patsy Hendren, his own idol in his budding years in the Middlesex as well as in the England Xl.

Triple century

Compton was the youngest to score a century for England when he got 102 against Australia at Trent Bridge in 1938. His was the fastest ever triple century when he hit 300 for MCC in 181 minutes against North East Transvaal. He notched 1,000 runs in an English season more times than any other cricketer and on two occasions he surpassed even himself by topping the 3,000 mark.

Few players could hold a candle to him. As a technician, Hutton was the superior but genius was not to be confined and cribbed within echnicalities. Compton was the spontaneous cricketer. He never played an innings that seemed long unlike Hutton, even if he batted the whole day. If Hutton could stride with purpose, Compton would, in grandeur. An innings by Compton was never a piece of study. It was a piece of inspiration.

Genius, unlike talent, is never rationed. It flows like the brook. There was the stamp of class, of authority in every stroke of his. He gave the sports scribes new adjectives - a Comptonian innings was one of ruthless elegance.

If he could not score freely and at will scribes never said that Compton was out of form. Rather would they say "Compton was out of mood". At the crease he was the spectator's delight and the bane of bowlers. But he would eternally permit the bowler to live in hope.

Dash and devilry

The dash and devilry as he hooked, or swept on one knee or as he danced down the wicket to make a full toss of a good length ball, held for the bowler a flicker of hope that now or in the next delivery Compton would perish. But Compton knew his strength too well even if his manner gave dithers to Hutton at the non-striker's end.

Surely, of all battles waged at the wickets, those titanic duels between Compton and Miller must take pride of place. Here were two friends [Miller's third son is named Denis] who forgot the niceties and thought of a prized scalp and, vice versa, of a boundary off the toes.

Their battles with Lindwall chipping in, were monumental and appealing that scribes burnt the pages with purple prose.

Denis Compton would have had a much longer and illustrious career as a cricketer had it not been for the intervening War years and that he was too good a footballer to be overlooked for England. Nature had endowed him bountifully but football took away the main spring of his movement - the knee cap.

"When Compton departs," wailed Cardus, "a glory will pass from the game not likely to be seen any more in quite the same form and spirit.

Delight

His was a name that stood for delight and adventure, freedom and impulse, cricket at its best and most likeable....At his most punishing when he played with the best bowlers as a cat with a mouse. His batting never seemed brutal, pugnacious, relentless. He was always giving them a chance - or leading them a dance."