Hugh Morris – A Life in Cricket

Martin Chandler | 9:12am BST 29 March 2026

Published: 2026
Pages: 66
Author: Hignell, Andrew
Publisher: Museum of Welsh Cricket
Rating: 4 stars

In common, I am sure, with all cricket lovers I was saddened to hear of the death of Hugh Morris at the end of last year. His name was synonymous with his county, Glamorgan, and two immensely successful opening partnerships, first with Alan Butcher and then with Steve James.

I remembered also a short Test career in 1991, in the days when the England selectors didn’t always give their men a fair chance – did Morris get one? Two of his three Tests were against West Indies, and twice he got past 40, but perhaps he just wasn’t quite up to international standard.

For Glamorgan though he was a colossus. An average of over 40 and 53 centuries are testament to that, and he also had two spells as county captain. During one of those, in 1993, he led the county to their first trophy since 1969 and then, four years later, he was a big part of a Championship winning side.

In 1997 Morris was 33. He averaged more than 52 for the summer, and against Warwickshire he made the highest score of his career, an unbeaten 233. But at the end of the season he retired in order to take up the first of a number of high profile jobs with the ECB. After that in 2013 he returned to Glamorgan where he took on the roles of Chief Executive and Director of Cricket and steadily turned the county’s fortunes round.

Another point about Morris is that I don’t ever recall hearing or reading anything in the least bit negative about him. Not unknown for a player, but for an administrator that speaks volumes as to Morris’s character. It was no surprise therefore that his passing at the early age of 62 caused such ripples throughout the game.

And nowhere more so than in the Welsh Valleys, where Morris was so immensely popular, so it is no surprise then that the latest publication in the Museum of Welsh Cricket’s series of monographs concerns him. At 66 pages it is rather more than an obituary, but not quite a biography.

Hugh Morris – A Life in Cricket has been written by Andrew Hignell, a man steeped in Welsh cricket and its history, and who knew Morris for almost half a century. No one could therefore have been better qualified to write this tribute, and no one could have made a better job of it.