[citation needed] He was asked to join the Kent Second XI in 1949 and played three matches in August against Norfolk, Wiltshire and Devon in the Minor Counties Championship.

When Cowdrey was made captain in the final Gentleman v Players match at Lord's it looked like he would be chosen, but he was forced to withdraw because of kidney stones and Dexter was put in charge.

However, he found a new rival in the old Sussex captain the Reverend David Sheppard, who was willing to take a sabbatical from his church mission in the East End in order to tour Australia.

Fred Trueman took 6/100 and Cowdrey three catches to dismiss the tourists for 301 and the captain Ted Dexter thrashed Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith round the ground for 70 off 75 balls in England's reply of 297.

Dexter couldn't field due to an injury taken when batting so Cowdrey led the team and took 3 more catches as Trueman took 5/52 and the West Indies' 229 relied almost entirely on Basil Butcher's 133.

Cowdrey did not tour, though he did go to the West Indies with the International Cavaliers, and Mike Smith was made captain, though Dexter joined him as vice-captain after losing to Jim Callaghan.

Cowdrey was criticised for not surrounding Sobers with fielders at the beginning of his innings, but he maintained that by spreading the field he encouraged him to make the strokes which could have got him out, but there was little doubt that the plan failed.

[33] On a happier note Kent came second in the County Championship to Yorkshire and won their first one-day competition, the Gillette Cup final against Somerset in front of 20,000 fans at Lord's.

[citation needed] The tour got off to a bad start when they were outscored in the warm up match against the Barbados Colts, but Cowdrey made 139 against the West Indies Board President's XI, adding 249 with Geoff Boycott (135).

Cowdrey and the manager Les Ames reluctantly agreed to resume play to help placate the crowd and an extra 75 minutes was added on the sixth day to make up for lost time.

[citation needed] Cowdrey took the next two matches off (which were drawn), but was with Fred Titmus when the off-spinner had four toes cut off by a boat propeller while swimming and drove him to the hospital for surgery, which enabled him to return to cricket after the tour.

The Third Test at Bridgetown was a dull draw, with Sobers winning the toss and the West Indies making 349, followed by 449 from England with Boycott (146) and John Edrich (90) adding 172 for the 1st wicket.

As the ball was swinging at the Oval that season he wanted the bowlers Tom Cartwright and Barry Knight, but they were both unfit and the opener Roger Prideaux caught a virus of the eve of the Test.

"Like a modern-day King Canute he rolled up his trousers, waded into the water...and supervised the mopping up operations of hundreds of volunteers",[37] Derek Underwood took 7/50 and England won by 226 runs with six minutes to spare.

England piled up 502/7, with Colin Milburn making 139 and Tom Graveney 105, but the match was abandoned after demonstrators wrecked the stadium on the morning of the third day, leaving Alan Knott stranded on 96 not out.

He was chosen over his rivals Brian Close and Tom Graveney as he was not seen as a threat to Cowdrey's long-term captaincy due to his age and inability to establish a regular spot in the Test team.

Kent suffered from his absence and fell to 10th in the County Championship, but Cowdrey was able to get some match practice in by touring the West Indies with the International Cavaliers and the Duke of Norfolk's XI.

[citation needed] Cowdrey's return to the England team fueled speculation that he was to resume the captaincy from Illingworth, but he did not and in the Third 'Test' he was told that his rival would be made captain for the Australian tour.

They decided to chase bonus points and won 7 and drew 5 of their last 12 games, often by close margins and it was a draw at the Oval, where Cowdrey made 112, that gave them the title with the newly elected Prime Minister Heath at the ground to invite them to a reception at 10 Downing Street to celebrate.

As a result, Illingworth effectively took over the running of the tour with the support of the players and Clark's influence declined,[44][45] as did that of Cowdrey, who as his only ally he became isolated, though he still had his Kent teammates Derek Underwood, Alan Knott and Brian Luckhurst.

[46] The players tended to avoid the press and public, even to the point of having their meals in their hotel rooms, and only Cowdrey made an effort to meet and greet the cricket fans.

His vice-captain and successor Mike Denness led Kent for most of the season; they fell to 4th in the County Championship and were the finalists in the Gillette Cup, but Cowdrey was unable to play and they lost to Lancashire by 24 runs.

Cowdrey's great milestone was his 100th first-class century, 100 not out against Surrey at Maidstone on 4 July 1974, after which he had a celebratory luncheon at Lords with ex-prime minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home as the guest speaker.

In his 20-year Test career he had faced the Australian fast bowlers Keith Miller, Ray Lindwall, Alan Davidson, Ian Meckiff, Gordon Rorke and even the young Dennis Lillee.

Cowdrey was dropped by Ian Redpath off Lillee, hit on the arm, survived a confident appeal by Rod Marsh before he was finally caught lbw by Thomson for 41, his highest score of the series.

Since both batsmen wanted to feel the ball on bat before the Test, I volunteered the use of the Hawthorn Indoor Cricket Centre, in which I was a partner, for a two-hour work-out on Christmas morning.

The central figure, wearing a large straw sun-hat, was signing endless autographs, posing for photographs and exchanging friendly talk with young and old in the way that has made him as popular a cricketer as has ever visited Australia".

John Arlott noticed this and commented: "Cowdrey could sink into pits of uncertainty when the fire ceased to burn, allowing himself to be dominated by bowlers inferior to him in skill".

[3] He served on the board at House of Whitbread Frelims and Barclays Bank International and was a member of the Council of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, a Member of the Council of The Cook Society (affiliate of Britain–Australia Society)[84] Having been knighted in the 1992 New Year Honours,[85] Cowdrey became a life peer as Baron Cowdrey of Tonbridge in the 1997 Queen's Birthday Honours List; he is one of only two cricketers to be given a life peerage for their services to the sport, the other being Learie Constantine in 1969.

He is the fourth most recent sportsman to be honoured with a memorial service in Westminster Abbey, following Sir Frank Worrell, Lord Constantine and Bobby Moore.