Lester and the Deckchair Revolution

Tony Pigott is perhaps best remembered as the man who postponed his wedding to play for England.

But that is just a very small part of his quietly extraordinary story.

The best schoolboy rackets player in the country; the Sussex player whose first three first-class wickets were a hat trick of internationals; and yes, he did postpone his wedding to play his only Test for his country on the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll tour of New Zealand; the man who has injected himself as a diabetes sufferer every day for the past 35 years; the figurehead of the deckchair revolution that led to Sussex winning the first CountyChampionship title in their history; the oesophageal cancer sufferer who has overcome the illness. And yes, these are all one man. Anthony Charles Shackleton Pigott. As befits a distant relative of the explorer Ernest Shackleton, it’s one hell of a story.

Told with the brutal honesty of a man who knows his cricket never scaled the heights but, after 46 full years in the game as player, coach, chief executive, pitch inspector and match referee, is now on a mission to help other cricketers suffering from cancer.