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Gleaned from the net:
Only a few weeks after that, Cowdrey went out and attained cricketing manhood. Before he had even scored a Championship century, he made two hundreds in the match against a mighty New South Wales team. "He played throughout his two innings without a shadow of uncertainty," wrote Alan Ross, "the margin for error as negligible as in Hutton's own technique." The only question now was where, not whether, Cowdrey would bat in the Test match. In the end, England shied away from making him open - this time. He began with a crisp 40 in the defeat at Brisbane; at Sydney, in the Second Test, his partnership with Peter May turned the game; on New Year's Eve at Melbourne, he scored 102 out of 191 against Lindwall and Miller at their most incisive on a bad pitch: "a blend of leisurely driving and secure back play, of power and propriety," according to Ross. England won the game and , after he had made another 79 at Adelaide, the Ashes. A star was born.
But even in that glad, confident morning there were the first tiny clouds of criticism that would never go away. During his wonderful maiden century Cowdrey was becalmed on 56 for 40 minutes and, though it was now commonplace to compare him to Hammond, Hutton noted drily: "Wally was hungrier."
(To be continued)
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