Raman Subba Row and David Sales have become the latest two inductees into Northamptonshire’s Hall of Fame.
The announcements were made at the club’s recent End of Season Dinner at The County Ground.
Subba Row, who celebrated his 90th birthday earlier this year, has made a huge contribution to English cricket, both on and off the field.
Joining Northamptonshire from Surrey in 1955, he made his mark early on with an unbeaten 260 against Lancashire – and three years later hit the club’s first triple-century, making 300 against his former county at The Oval.
As a top-order batter possessing (according to his team-mate Frank Tyson) ‘monolithic concentration and unshakable determination’, Subba Row scored just over 7,000 first-class runs for Northamptonshire, and averaged 46.85 in his 13 Test matches for England – including centuries in his first and last Tests against Australia.
Although retiring early as a player, he became a pioneer in the marketing of cricket and served as chairman of both Surrey and, between 1985 and 1990, the TCCB. He was also ICC match referee in 41 Tests and 119 ODIs.
Northamptonshire CCC was delighted to welcome Raman’s wife Anne and son Alistair to the presentation evening, and Alistair read out a message from his father expressing his gratitude for the honour.
Regarded by many Northamptonshire supporters as the club’s best England-qualified cricketer not to win a Test cap, David Sales scored nearly 22,000 runs for the county across all formats between 1994 and 2014.
Described by the late Brian Reynolds as ‘the best young batsman I’ve seen since Peter May’, ‘Jumble’ made a huge impact in Northamptonshire colours with an unbeaten 70 off 56 balls in his first List A match – aged 16 – against Essex, and two years later created more cricket history with 210 not out on first-class debut off Worcestershire’s attack at Kidderminster.
In 1999, Sales became – still only 21 – the youngest English triple-centurion, hitting 303 not out against Essex at Northampton.
A serious knee injury, suffered on an England A tour to the Caribbean in January 2001, put his progress on hold, but he continued to plunder runs for Northamptonshire until his retirement eight years ago. His son James is now a first-team regular with Northamptonshire and has recently extended his contract until the end of 2025.
Subba Row (1958-1961) and Sales (2004-2007) both captained the county for four seasons.
The club is honoured to add both these outstanding cricketers to the Hall of Fame, with their special plaques set to join those commemorating the other inductees in the Spencer Pavilion.