Tony Pigott obituary: one-Test cricketer who became boss of Sussex

The wedding was postponed and Pigott bowled reasonably into the wind in this second Test at Christchurch, taking two New Zealand wickets at a cost of 75 runs, but England, bowled out for 82 and 93, lost badly and he was informed he would not be needed for the final Test. He reverted to an existence that was as combustible as it was compelling. A likeable, trusting but somewhat naive individual, Pigott endured a rollercoaster life of success and sackings, diabetes and divorce, a brawl and a back-stabbing. His marriage lasted 18 months.

As befitting a distant relative of Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer, Pigott had an adventurous streak. He journeyed all around the cricketing world when young to work on a natural ability to project a ball quickly amid a jumble of arms and legs at the crease. John Snow, one of England’s great fast bowlers, sidled up to him during a net session at their county, Sussex, and told him not to listen to the coach who was concentrating on his grip of the ball. “Your rhythm is everything. So what if you spray it around sometimes? You have pace,” he told him.

Indeed he did and improved control and movement were in due course allied to this raw attribute. His first three wickets, in 1978, were a hat-trick. After 20 years as a cricketer Pigott became chief executive of Sussex after a coup but was himself ousted only two years later. Episodic ill health and business problems followed, as did an unexplained sacking as a match referee by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). Yet his core belief was never to give in.

Anthony Charles Shackleton Pigott was the son of Tom Pigott, an Old Harrovian stockbroker, and his wife, Juliet (née Strong). After Holmewood House preparatory school in Kent, he was sent to Harrow. If academia was not Pigott’s strong point, sport certainly was: he excelled at rackets, becoming the best schoolboy player in the country, and at squash, rugby, football and golf as well as cricket.

Harrow were far too strong for Eton in their annual encounter at Lord’s during Pigott’s three years in their XI. Yet despite his sporting prowess he was not happy at the school. He neither looked nor spoke like a typical Harrovian and his autobiography, released last autumn, revealed that some boys were snooty towards him.

By contrast, Pigott swiftly took to county cricket with Sussex, hitting it off with team-mates such as Imran Khan, a future captain and prime minister of Pakistan, and John Barclay, despite (or perhaps because of) him being an Old Etonian. Pigott was soon known in the dressing room and beyond as “Lester” after the great jockey with the near identical surname. The quick pitches and sea frets at Hove that, he maintained, induced swing, appealed to him. He played for the county, whole-heartedly despite suffering a stress facture of the back that for a time seemed likely to bring a premature end to his career, until 1993.

He did not know he was being released until he read about it in the Brighton newspaper, The Argus. Aggrieved at this and feeling he still had more cricket left in him, Pigott joined Surrey, who also offered him employment in the winter in their marketing department. He eventually retired after taking 574 first-class wickets for Sussex at an average of 31.95 and a further 51 wickets for Surrey. A useful lower-order batsman, he made 4,411 first-class runs for Sussex at 20.51 with one century. He also played club cricket in Sydney and in New Zealand and coached in South Africa.

In his third and final year at the Oval Pigott became the second XI player/coach and seemingly would transition to coaching Surrey’s first team in due course. In 1997, however, an opportunity arose to return to Sussex as chief executive under the chairmanship of Robin Marlar, a former captain of the club and a family friend. The members had tired of a lack of progress on the south coast and demanded changes within the committee.

Pigott brought in a new captain in Chris Adams and oversaw the installation of permanent floodlights. Sussex were the first county so to do so. Only two years later, though, he was sacked once more, this time by Marlar’s successor as chairman, Don Trangmar. The club was running at a substantial loss but he was given no explanation and wrote in his autobiography Lester and the Deckchair Revolution — the title referencing his nickname and the striped seating that was a feature at Hove — that he had been “knifed” by David Gilbert, the director of cricket who then took his job. Pigott had no wish to immerse the club in further upheaval and he did not demur from a statement that he had resigned.

Other problems had piled up: Pigott had to try to maintain his pace while injecting himself four times a day to contend with his type 1 diabetes. The then chief executive, Nigel Betts, told him his career was finished. It was not. On other occasions a brawl with a taxi driver led to him receiving a suspension; and he had his licence taken away as a result of erratic driving owing to his diabetes. A further mishap occurred when he was in intensive care for three weeks after falling down a flight of stairs in France; and his fundraising benefit year as reward for ten years as a capped cricketer was badly affected by a downturn in the economy.

He bought a pub in Hurstpierpoint only to find that the takings were diminished through the manager handing out free drinks late in the evening without his knowledge. Still worse, he was sacked from his final job, a match referee for the ECB, which followed on from eight years as a pitch inspector for the governing body in which his judgments seemingly were respected. Although he understood the regard for the most picturesque outgrounds, he felt forced to penalise Kent for a poor pitch at Maidstone in only his second supervisory match in 2005. Pigott wryly noted the club chairman, Carl Openshaw, told the supporters there would be plenty more county matches staged there. They have yet to return.

Yet again no reason was forthcoming for the termination of his final role in 2018. His father died that same September and on New Year’s Eve he was told he had oesophageal cancer. Pig­ott under­went chemo­ther­apy and a 12-hour oper­a­tion to cut out the tumour. He recovered and moved in with his mother in Sussex. He decided to detail his full life in his autobiography but parted company with his ghost-writer, Andrew Murtagh (who is still credited), “because he wrote too much about himself”.

Pigott is survived by his fiancée, Tracey Pattinson, and by the son from his marriage, Elliot, who undertakes charitable work. Barclay, who became his captain at Hove and provided refuge when his marriage broke up, wrote in the foreword to his book: “Tony slowly developed into a seriously good bowler. Or should I put it another way? He could produce seriously good spells. Of course, it’s not hard to forget that Tony is not perfect; no, far from it and I say thank goodness for that. Let’s face it, imperfection releases so many more possibilities and opportunities than does perfection. His life and career are testament to that.”

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