David ‘Syd' Lawrence obituary, fearsome fast bowler

It was one of the most horrific sounds ever heard at a cricket ground. When David Lawrence fell horribly in the middle of his delivery stride as he was about to bowl on the last day of the Third Test between England and New Zealand at the Basin Reserve in Wellington on February 10, 1992, those present claim that the noise of his left kneecap shattering rang out 'like a pistol shot'.
Lawrence echoed the analogy, recalling that it 'felt like a sniper had shot me in the knee'. The sound of his screams of pain was even louder as he was stretchered from the field, consoled by his team-mate Ian Botham, who was playing in is 100th Test.
The medics were unanimous that it was a career-ending injury and Lawrence — known to one and all as 'Syd' after the bandleader — never played for England again. Yet it was typical of his bravery that he attempted a comeback for Gloucestershire in county cricket not once but twice.
On the first occasion, after more than a year of rehab, his knee cracked again while working in the gym. Yet with grim determination he tried again and after missing five whole seasons, he took the field for Gloucestershire in four matches in 1997. His speed was down and eight wickets at a cost of 45 runs apiece was a meagre return, and he accepted defeat.
In later life fate was later to deliver him an even crueller blow but that his obituary should begin with the moment that effectively ended his career is indicative of what a tragedy his injury was.
At the time he was on the point of establishing himself in the England side as a powerfully-built quick bowler with genuine pace and endless stamina. He was, as Michael Atherton put it, 'a genuinely fast bowler in presence, heart and mind', and with Courtney Walsh as his new ball partner at Gloucestershire there was perhaps no quicker pair of opening bowlers on the county circuit.
Lawrence ran in with arms and legs flailing everywhere. His direction early in his career had sometimes been erratic, but by the time of his accident he had started to add a degree of control to the speed that had made him such a fearsome opponent in county cricket.
He was also the first British-born black cricketer to play for England. Others who had preceded him, including Roland Butcher, Wilf Slack, Norman Cowans, Gladstone Small and Phil DeFreitas, had been born in the Caribbean.
Having made his Test debut against Sri Lanka in 1988, he was made to wait three summers before he appeared in an England shirt again, when he played two Tests in 1991 against a West Indian side led by Viv Richards and containing his county team-mate Walsh.
In the final game of the series at the Oval he took seven wickets, including Richards, in his final Test innings, Desmond Haynes and Richie Richardson, to help England to a victory that enabled them to level the series.
It was the sweetest moment of his cricketing career on the ground where as a 12-year-old he had watched in awe as Michael Holding, 'Whispering Death', took 14 English wickets. It was one of the greatest displays of sustained and hostile pace bowling and the moment when Lawrence decided that he, too, was going to be a fast bowler.
He followed his triumph at the Oval with four further wickets in a one-off Test at the end of the season against Sri Lanka at Lords and was a shoe-in for the winter tour of New Zealand.
He turned 28 during the tour and with five Tests behind him was reaching his peak. He was looking forward to many more, with an Ashes series in 1993 in his sights followed by his first tour of the West Indies.
As the son of Jamaican immigrants who had arrived as part of the Windrush generation, it was his greatest ambition to play for England in a Test series in the Caribbean. He did make it to a Test match in Jamaica when England toured the West Indies in early 1998, but as a spectator. He wrote in his 2025 autobiography In Syd's Voice: 'I went out on my own as a supporter and stepped onto Jamaican soil for the very first time. Sitting in the stands and watching a game unfold in the sunshine, with the noise of the crowd, and with an ice-cold Red Stripe in my hand. Doesn't that sound like bliss?'
Yet even then, bad luck dogged him. He had just settled into his seat on the first morning with his beer when, after ten overs, the umpires abandoned the game due to a dangerous pitch.
After his injury, Lawrence struggled to accept how his Test match career had been cut short. 'I went through a bout of depression,' he said in 2014. 'It was a dark place. I got very low and was left wondering, 'what do I do'.'
What he did was to build a new life — and a new body. In his playing days he had weighed in at over 16 stone and his barrel-chested frame grew even bulkier in the gym when he took up body building. He became the National Amateur Body Building Association's West of England champion first for the over-40s and then for the over-50s. He came eighth in the British body building finals and narrowly missed qualification for the world championship.
All of his resilience was required once more when in 2024, after feeling a tingling in his toes and right leg, he had motor neurone disease diagnosed. 'You're given a diagnosis for something that has no treatment, and you know that no matter how hard you fight and no matter how hard you stay positive, you can't win… With those three words my heart hit the floor and then it seemed like my body fell with it,' he wrote in his memoir, which he dictated to his ghost writer, Dean Wilson.
By the time the book was finished his voice was almost gone and he learnt to speak through a computer.
He was supported in his illness by his wife, Gaynor, and son, Buster, a former professional rugby union player who brought forward the date of his wedding to allow his father to speak at the celebration. It was one of the last times his voice was heard without mechanical assistance.
His final weeks were strewn with honours. He was appointed MBE in the King's Birthday Honours and was made one of six inaugural honorary life vice-presidents of the ECB.
'I am feeling hopeful that I still have enough time to enjoy this summer because the cricket season has just started and it has brought the weather I love,' he said shortly before he died.
David Valentine Lawrence was born in Gloucester in 1961, the son of Joseph and Joyce Lawrence. His father had played club cricket in Jamaica and encouraged his son to take up the game. His success at Linden School attracted the attention of Gloucestershire, which gave him his first-team debut in 1981 at the age of 17.
As a teenager, music and the beat of northern soul offered a rival attraction and he recalled hitching from Gloucester to Wigan Casino with a bag containing a change of clothes for a life beginning at midnight.
An early encounter with his hero Viv Richards put him right. 'You only get one chance; don't waste it,' the West Indian legend told him. It was enough to persuade him to focus single-mindedly on his cricket, although he never lost his love of dancing. In later years he owned the Dojo nightclub in Bristol, often acting as the bouncer at the door of his own venue.
Prior to his England debut in 1988 he spent several winters playing grade cricket in Australia and by the time he was forced to hang up his bowling boots he had taken 515 first-class wickets and another 155 in one-day cricket.
Although he bowled at a fearsome pace, he was a gentle giant and when he struck the West Indian batsman Phil Simmons on the head during a game in Bristol in 1988, he described it as one of the worst moments of his life. Simmons underwent emergency brain surgery in hospital, where Lawrence visited him. 'I went into the room where he was lying down and his fiancée was sat there next to him and I just broke down in tears,' he recalled.
In a 2021 Sky Sports documentary he revealed the racism he had suffered during his career, including a team-mate leaving a banana skin outside his hotel room door during his first away match. His county, Gloucestershire, issued an apology and the following year he was invited to become the club's first black president. 'I'm not going to be a gin and tonic person with a blazer on,' he said of his new office. 'I want to invite people of colour to the ground who may not have come to cricket before. There will be black poets up there, friends I have from Massive Attack. You want the camera to pan into that president's room and see a different crowd.'
He was present in his wheelchair in September 2024 when Gloucestershire won the T20 Blast final, only the county's second piece of silverware in 20 years. When the Gloucestershire players handed him the trophy in the dressing room afterwards, there were tears in his eyes — and in the eyes of most of those looking on, too.
David 'Syd' Lawrence, cricketer, was born on Janaury 28, 1964. He died of motor neurone disease on June 21, 2025, aged 61

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