It was sad to learn of the passing of Cliff Cox who had \u201cserved cricket in British Columbia and Canada for four decades”, in the words of the current President of cricket in British Columbia. Cliff had played cricket in at least one of the Lancashire leagues, it may have been the Central Lancs League. He once told me he had played association football (soccer, football) for Oldham Athletic. <\/p>\n
He worked hard, knew about the game of cricket and understood the value of money. He gained an anonymous mention in a book by Geoffrey Boycott as being a Lancastrian host with whom the Yorkshire and England opening batsman had stayed. This during a visit to Vancouver by Yorkshire. So sometimes the red rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York can meet in friendship rather than in battles for the crown. It just goes to show what good people can achieve, given the chance.
\n\t
\nCliff captained Canada on at least two occasions against the USA and played for Western Canada against the Australian tourists in 1975. He opened the batting against the USA in Los Angeles in 1969 making 1 and 12 with the bat and holding two catches. The USA included a Trinidadian called Stollmeyer (whose uncle was Jeff Stollmeyer) and a Barbadian called Weekes (who was not called Everton) . But it was an Aussie called Terry Lee who did the damage with the bat in a USA win by 131 runs. Lee made 93 in the first innings and 88 (caught Cliff Cox) in the second. Lee also took 4 for 10 in Canada\u2019s first innings. <\/p>\n
Ron Aldridge, well known in Canadian cricketing circles, scored 80 as Canada reached 202 against the USA in Winnipeg in 1970. Cliff was again the skipper and the hosts had the USA in trouble. A first innings tally of 73 all out saw the US invited to follow-on but they ended on 58 for 7 wickets and the game was drawn. <\/p>\n
These matches were the 2-day USA-Canada matches which had a revival, at short-notice, in 2011. <\/p>\n
The touring Aussies made 167 for five in 40 overs against Western Canada in a May 1975 one-day game. Captain Greg Chappell made 48 and Ross Edwards 37 not out, but that seems to have been it for the game. Western Canada did not bat. <\/p>\n
His role as Vice-president of the Canadian Cricket Association\/Cricket Canada included involvement with women\u2019s cricket, and saw players from \u201ceast\u201d and \u201cwest\u201d come together in the Canadian national women\u2019s team. <\/p>\n
Canadian cricket seems to have had more than it\u2019s share of cricketers of unknown birth, incomplete names and style of play over various years (some completely missing the boat where matches seem unknown), but Cliff Cox deserves to be remembered. Hopefully talk of having learned from Cliff will be demonstrated by better efforts to promote the game in Canada. <\/p>\n
We remember Cliff, we are saddened at his passing, our thoughts go with his family and friends and we honour his efforts for the game of cricket across Canada. Dieu protegez nos foyons et vos droits. God look after our homes and our rights. (Communities or neighbourhoods might be the spirit of the translation more than \u2018homes\u2019.) And look after Cliff, in particular, and his family. But God, the Creator or whatever name you use, could do with some help from those left here on earth to build better communities. Thank you, Clifford Cox. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was sad to learn of the passing of Cliff Cox who had \u201cserved cricket in British Columbia and Canada for four decades”, in the words of the current President of cricket in British Columbia. Cliff had played cricket in at least one of the Lancashire leagues, it may have been the Central Lancs League. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2546"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2546"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2548,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2546\/revisions\/2548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}