The cricketer Raman Subba Row, who has died aged 92, played more than a dozen Test matches as an amateur for England between 1958 and 1961. Then he surprised the selectors by retiring at the height of his powers to pursue a business career. Few in the modern game would voluntarily end their playing days at their peak, but Subba Row lived in an era when “gentlemen” players often nurtured a studied indifference towards sporting achievement, and in any case often needed to find a stable income beyond the boundary.
Subba Row left cricket to work in public relations, but later he made a further mark on the game as an influential administrator, and as chairman of the Test and County Cricket Board (TCCB) was a leading figure in the handing over of global power from MCC to the International Cricket Council.
