Former Kent batsman Graham Cowdrey dies aged 56

Canterbury [UK], November 11 (ANI): Former Kent cricketer Graham Cowdrey has died at the age of 56 after a short illness.
A right-handed middle-order batsman, Graham represented Young England before making his county debut in 1984, and he was a regular member of the Kent side for more than a decade.
His fourteen years of service at Kent saw him represent the county 450 times across all forms of the game at the time, scoring over 14,000 runs as a batsman highly suited to the emergence of the modern one-day game.
He was awarded Kent County Cap number 169 in the Summer of 1988, after establishing himself in Kent's middle-order.
Graham's close friend and former Club teammate Matthew Fleming in an official statement said: "I am numb with shock and sadness that the brilliant, generous, funny and complex friend who lit up so many cricket grounds, on and off the pitch, has slipped away.
"'Van, as he was universally known because of his love of all things Van Morrison, was an instinctive cricketer, a game-changer, who won matches with his prowess as a batsman and a fielder," Fleming added.
Graham also held the Kent record for any first-class batting partnership for 22 years, after his fourth-wicket stand of 368 with Aravinda de Silva against Derbyshire in 1995, until it was broken by Sean Dickson and Joe Denly in 2017. It remains Kent's highest fourth-wicket partnership in the Club's history. (ANI)