Leo Bennett

Who was Leo Bennett?

Major Alfred Charles Leopold Bennett, MBE born at West Norwood in London on 31 December 1914, and died at Thames Ditton, Surrey, on 24 September 1971, was a first-class cricketer who played for Northamptonshire for three seasons after the Second World War.

Bennett was a right-handed middle-order batsman who played for Surrey's second eleven in 1937, and might have played more for Surrey but for a mistake at the start of the 1946 season. According to a published history of the county club, Surrey, casting around for an amateur captain to lead the side in the hastily-arranged first season of first-class cricket after the war, alighted on the name "Major Bennett". The intention appears to have been to offer the job to Leo Bennett, but instead, another club cricketer, Major Nigel Harvie Bennett, who had also played a few second eleven matches pre-war, was asked and he accepted the job.

Most of Leo Bennett's cricket was at club level, where he was a prominent player over many seasons and a frequent player and captain in the minor warm-up matches for the Club Cricket Conference against touring sides; he was also the captain for the BBC cricket team.