Causes of Death of English Test Match Captains

As of August 2008, 78 men have captained England in at least one Test match. This is a list of how they have died:

“ I told him not to go out for captain of the English cricket team, but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! He did it anyway, and then he popped a cap in his ass!"”

~ Andrew Stoddard on the death of his cousin Andrew Stoddart.

English Test match captains
Number	Name	How died
1	James Lillywhite	Run over by pitch roller driven by irate Australian.
2	Geoff Boycott's Grandmother	Still alive and scoring runs for Barnsley 2nd XI.
3	Alfred Shaw	Shot down by German fighter pilot.
4	Monkey Hornby	Potassium overload. Ate one too many bananas.
5	Honourable Ivo Bligh	Forgot to utilise box as part of equipment.
6	Arthur Shrewsbury	Cucumber sandwich poisoning
7	Allan Steel	Dropped dead at the sheer shock of scoring a half century.
8	Walter Read	Smashed in back of head by umpire for excessive apealing.
9	W. G. Grace	Exploded when cummerbund snapped, covering team mates in a sticky green substance. Some say this proves he was, in actual fact, an extraterrestrial being, or he ate too much green ketchup.
10	Sir Aubrey Smith	Pneumonia. He was also pronounced dead from pneumonia 59 years before he actually died from it. Actually scored centuries, fielded at slip and killed Australians whilst clinically dead.
11	Monty Bowden	Officially epilepsy. Bowden fell from his cart and was trampled by the hooves of his own oxen and taken to Umtali hospital where he died three days later. The hospital was little more than a mud hut, and his body had to be kept from marauding lions before he was buried in a coffin made of whiskey cases.
12	Andrew Stoddart	Suicide. Shot himself on day 6 of the timeless test.
13	Sir Tim O'Brien	Reached expiry limit of three centuries.
14	Lord Hawke	Lacre addiction.
15	Archie MacLaren	Drowned on the Titanic. Presumably. No-one knows for sure, some say his family invented the story to make him famous, hoping to mask his obvious lack of ability.
16	Sir Pelham Warner	Decapitated - hit by flying pigeon whilst at crease.
17	Honourable Sir Stanley Jackson	Illness. A year before he had been run over by a milk float seriously damaging his toe.
18	Tip Foster	Suicide. Couldn't bear joining the primary club.
19	Frederick Fane	Accidentally walked into Australian team's dressing-room barbecue when they'd run out of burgers. His ashes are now competed for when England face Australia in Tests.
20	Arthur Jones	Impaled after falling on wicket.
21	Shrimp Leveson-Gower	Pioneer of and expert at the fielding position super-silly mid-on, two feet from the batsman's crease. Smashed over the head by batsman. Accidentally, of course.
22	Johnny Douglas	Drowned after consuming excessive amounts of Dilmah tea.
23	C. B. Fry	Living, though now in the form of Stephen Fry.
24	John Wisden	Attempted to complete his first 500-page almanack in one night.
25	Frank Mann	Shot by irate spectator.
26	Arthur Gilligan	Contracted cowation.
27	Arthur Carr	Random humour overdose. Probably read this article.
28	Percy 'Wheeze' Chapman	Officially Lung Cancer resulting from smoking 40 cigarettes a day. The final straw came when, in desperation, he bought a 'home-made' cigarette from a bum in Jamaica.
29	Rony Stanyforth	Failed to get treatment for ingrowing toenail.
30	Greville Stevens	STD-related illness. Was a little bit too 'forward' with his short leg.
31	Jack White	Never the best of batsmen, when someone shouted 'duck!', he replied in jocular fashion 'no thanks, I have over fifty already'. He was subsequently smashed in the back of the head by a misguided bouncer.
32	Harold Gilligan	Legs fell off. Could not afford proper protection pads, so instead utilised some rolled-up newspaper.
33	Honourable Freddie Calthorpe	Upended by a rather large dog that invaded the pitch aiming for his 'lower regions'.
34	Bob 'Bodyform' Wyatt	Assassinated by Australian Government who cited he was 'bad for trade and tourism'.
35	Douglas Jardine	Finished by swift Slazenger up the bracket. Avenged by a badly bruised and irate Don Bradman.
36	Cyril Walters	A professional nightwatchman, suffered serious batterings after actually facing more balls than all his team mates combined. The final blow was inflicted by a wicket keeper who tapped his shoulder, causing Walters to collapse and die instantly.
37	Gubby Allen	Jelly and Blancmange overdose.
38	Walter Robins	Cupcake concussion. Mistakenly thought a Cake Cannon was an automatic bowling machine.
39	Wally Hammond	Murdered by enraged owner of an automobile whose windows were smashed as a direct cause of a large six, hit by Hammond, landing in the car park at Headingley.
40	Norman Yardley	Spontaneously Combusted. On the wrong end of a Universal Remote Control related prank.
41	Ken Cranston	Food poisoning. Consumed a McDonald's Happy Meal whilst in New Zealand. Once.
42	George Mann	Suicide. Could not cope with the sheer pressure of attempting to score a run whilst at the same time captaining England.
43	Freddie Brown	Blood clot following unfortunate inside edge into genital regions.
44	Nigel Howard	Ate 22lb of Deep Fried Mars Bars during a tea break whilst playing Glasgow C.C. on the advice that it was 'healthy'.
45	Donald Carr	Killed with Handgun when a spectator mistakenly believed he was attending a Bloodbath match.
46	Len Hutton	Duckworth-Lewis method.
47	David Sheppard	Fatal fart.
48	Peter May	Developed 'robotic umpire syndrome' whereby he became limited to very few, cricket related movements. The problem came when he accidentally gave the 'two balls left' signal to a rather large individual in the pub.
49	Colin Cowdrey	Bored to death watching Geoff Boycott.
50	Ted Dexter	Eaten by sharks. Always a superstitious soul, insisted on lifting his leg whenever the score was a multiple of 111. The problem came when a pirate with a wooden leg saw him doing this and mistakenly thought he was taking the piss.
51	M. J. K. Smith	Insisted on having his full name tatooed into his arm. The procedure lasted so long he died of blood poisoning during the process.
52	Brian Close	Passed out reciting the Leg Before Wicket rule at a Match Referee's meeting.
53	Tom Graveney	Leg chopped off using axe. Killed by club a bowler who failed to understand the true meaning of a 'leg cutter'.
54	Ray Illingworth	Encountered Blue screen of death when attempting to download 'Desktop Richie'.
55	Tony Lewis	Trampled under drinks cart. Nobody noticed.
56	Mike Denness	Walloped on back of head with a 2kg bat. As an umpire, made the mistake of using his middle finger, rather than his index finger, to give the batsman out.
57	John Edrich	Insisted on wearing his lucky shin pads at all times, even when not participationg in a match. Unfortunately, they caught fire when he was frying an egg.
58	Tony Greig	Outgrew his body. Channel 9 cried. Aussies toasted.
59	Mike Brearley	Was deemed as 'too crap to live' by the ECB and terminated on his fortieth birthday. (imagine that happening!)
60	Geoffrey Boycott	Died after prolongued period at crease. Scored seven runs, but unfortunately forgot to eat, drink or sleep and passed away after six days.
61	Ian Botham	Accidentally swallowed the free gift from a pack of Shredded Wheat. Alive, but only just alive
62	Keith Fletcher	Drowned when attempting a James Bond-esque driving stunt for the television programme Top Gear.
63	Bob Willis	Hair outgrew his body.
64	David Gower	Starved after Gary Lineker stole his supply of cheese and onion crisps, which Gower relied upon to remain alive.
65	Mike Gatting	Exploded. Ate too much chocolate pizza.
66	John Emburey	Savaged by wild Boony after straying into the Australian Bush.
67	Chris Cowdrey	Hit by Devon Malcolm bouncer. In the knee. Caused massive tumor.....
68	Graham Gooch	Had the audacity to pinch one of Adam Gilchrist's prized wickets from his collection. Andrew Symonds saw to it...
69	Allan Lamb	Consumed some severely undercooked 'Quality lamb' cooked by Beefy. Beefy got fined $2,000,000.
70	Alec Stewart	Living, but in John Major's cellar, brewing illegal ale.
71	Michael Atherton	Struck in face by Glenn McGrath. Not wearing helmet at the time as incident occurred in Sydney pub. Glenn McGrath was acquitted at court.
72	Nasser Hussain	Living, although his fingers are now detached.
73	Mark Butcher	On the wrong end of Billy Bowden's 'crooked finger of doom'.
74	Michael Vaughan	Taken out by Google for his constant misuse of the word 'googly' and the copyright breach it constituted. Google was blocked for about a month after this happened.
75	Marcus Trescothick	Was being chased by a 14 ton elephant and forgot to move his feet so that he could escape
76	Andrew Flintoff	Living, although in constant hypnosis caused by staring at Muttiah Muralitharan's eyes for too long.
77	Andrew Strauss	Mistaken for Johan Strauss by an enraged punk and battered with a guitar. Survived, but was later killed by playing too much Assassin's Creed and tried to climb the pavilion at Lord's, only to jump and find not a bail of hay, but a black hole into nothingness.
78	Paul Collingwood	Still alive, due to his gritty determination making him surprisingly difficult to get rid of.
79	Kevin Pietersen	Crushed under the weight of his own sense of self-importance. English Cricket Board suspected of involvement.
80	Alastair Cook	Decreed as being alive. Decision overturned on referral after hotspot showed no sign of life.
81	Adolf Hitler	he was too kind and peaceful to live.

See also

• Cricket
• Death

References

• Cricinfo
• Cricket Archive