Clive Inman kept our flag flying abroad scoring fastest 50 in 8 minutes – By Mahinda Wijesinghe

Source:Daily Mirror

Left-hand batsman, Clive Clay Inman (born 29-1-36), played for St. Peter’s College, Bambalapitiya, with great distinction, and crowned his school cricket career by scoring a glorious double century (204) in the ‘Big Match’ against St. Joseph’s College, Colombo.

He played for the school’s First XI cricket team for five seasons, and captained it to victory in the Battle of the Saints – against St. Joseph’s College – in his final season in 1954-55. He also played first class cricket for Ceylon from 1956 to 1966, and for Leicestershire, in the English county season until 1971.

Inman made his first class debut in 1956, representing Ceylon against India at the P. Saravanamuttu Stadium. Inman would go on to play another 254 first class matches.

A middle-order batsman, Inman made sporadic appearances for Ceylon in the Gopalan Trophy Tournament against Madras, during the remainder of the decade before moving to England and first played for Penzance CC before joining his countrymen Stanley Jayasinghe for Leicestershire CC.

His first match for the English club came against the touring Australian side in 1961 when he contributed 30 and 45 not out. He had to wait until 1963 to make his official County Championship debut and a few days later he scored his maiden first class century against Cambridge University.

Inman was selected to tour England with the Ceylon team in 1968, but the tour was cancelled just before it was due to begin. He had his most prolific season in 1968, scoring 1,735 runs at 36.91. Despite the high tally of runs he only scored one century that season. Only in his final county season, 1971, did he score four hundreds in a year. One of those came in his final first class match, played against Northamptonshire at Grace Road.

Inman also played some List ‘A’ cricket while representing Derbyshire in 1973.

In September 2018, he was one of the 49 former Sri Lankan cricketers felicitated by Sri Lanka Cricket, to honour them for their services before Sri Lanka became a Full Member of the International Cricket Council (ICC).

Inman made his first class debut in 1956, representing Ceylon against India at the P. Saravanamuttu Stadium. Although Inman didn’t make an impact as a bowler, the only international wicket he claimed was that of Indian opener Nari Contractor in his career of 254 first class matches.

Note the following from Clive Inman’s Niece Diane

I last met Uncle Clive in England two years ago. I asked him to tell me the story of the fastest 50 that I’d heard people talk so much about…from the horse’s mouth so to speak!!

He remembered everything about it as if it was just a few years ago! I disagree with the writer of the article about it being ‘removed from the records’ – although Uncle Clive did agree about the full tosses, as far as I know it remains to this day in the record books of county cricket in England as well as the Guiness Book of Records, until the record was finally broken many years later (I have several copies of these books with his name in it). In fact his club asked him for the bat he used to score it with, for their trophy cupboard (according to U.Clive).

I’ be interested to know where the writer got the information about it being removed from the records. Perhaps he knows something Uncle Clive and I don’t.

Diane

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