Paul Downton
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| Full name | Paul Rupert Downton | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
4 April 1957 Farnborough, Kent, England |
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| Batting style | Right-hand bat | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling style | n/a | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Source: Cricinfo, 1 January 2006 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Paul Downton (born Paul Rupert Downton, 4 April 1957, Farnborough, Kent) is a former English cricketer, who played in thirty Tests and twenty eight ODIs from 1977 to 1989. He was a wicket-keeper and a useful batsman in the lower middle-order. He played his county cricket for both Kent and Middlesex.
Downton attended Sevenoaks Prep School, Sevenoaks School and the University of Exeter. He obtained a degree in law, a certificate in coaching and earned international honours at youth level in both cricket and rugby union. His early county cricket career was with Kent. However, he became frustrated filling in for Alan Knott when on international duties, and moved to Middlesex in 1980. On arrival, he has been described by a teammate there as 'an intelligent, dapper individual…who did not immediately seem to fit with the rather cruder, laddish Londoners in the team.'. On his first-class debut with Middlesex, the captain, Mike Brearley, chose to use Downton as an opener, and the two registered an opening partnership of 160. Downton tasted Test cricket for the first time in the West Indies that winter. He was dropped after the first Test against Australia in the summer of 1981 and had to wait until the summer of 1984 for further such honours, when he was picked at home to bolster England's batting options against the West Indies. It began an uninterrupted twenty-three match run in the national team.
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