Tony Pigott, who played cricket for Sussex and England, died at 67 years old. Pigott worked two years at Sussex as Chief Executive Officer after his cricket career ended before joining the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) as Pitch Liaison Officer in 2005 according to information from the ECB website. Pigott played one Test for England and spent more than a decade working for the ECB after his retirement. Pigott made his sole Test appearance in 1984 against New Zealand at Christchurch. He took two wickets during the first innings, achieving bowling figures of 2 for 75 over 17 overs. New Zealand only needed to bat once because they enforced the follow-on rule against England, which meant he could not bowl again.
In the match, Pigott claimed wickets of New Zealand’s opener Bruce Edgar before dismissing Jeremy Coney. Richard Hadlee scored 99 runs for New Zealand and then led the bowling group to bowl England out twice under the score of 100 runs as England faced an innings and 132 runs defeat at the hands of the hosts. Pigott scored 12 runs for England in the Test match.
Pigott achieved 672 wickets at an average of 30.99 throughout his 17-year first-class cricket career which included 260 matches for Sussex and Surrey. Pigott also scored 4,841 runs during his 260 first-class matches, which included one century and 20 fifties, while achieving a top score of 104*.
He played in 270 List A matches, where he took 377 wickets with an average of 24.39. Pigott scored 1,727 runs with the highest score of 53.
Pigott became one of the first people to hold the Cricket Liaison Officer position after it started in 2015, which required him to represent the ECB at 1st XI matches while also serving as a forerunner to the Match Referee position.