Career
He toured Australia for the 1950-1951 Ashes series for the Manchester Evening News and wrote several cricketing books, including Ashes to Hassett (1951) and Cricket in the Leagues (1970). He played for Middleton in the Central Lancashire League and when Basil d"Oliveira emigrated from South Africa in 1960 because Apartheid banned him from playing first-class cricket he arranged for him to play for Middleton as a professional. He wrote that d"Oliveira was surprised to see white people serving him in restaurants and doing menial work.
Doctorate"Oliveira later played for Worcestershire County Cricket Club (from 1964) and England (from 1966).
Kay"s prose style was colourful and he could be critical, as evidenced by these two examples from Ashes to Hassett
The First Test between Australia and England is played nowadays at Brisbane. Nobody seems to know why, and all sorts of arguments are ventilated for and against more cricket Tests on the Woolloongabba ground.
I am all in favour of robbing Queensland of its greatest cricketing occasion, for the ground depresses. lieutenant is not a cricket ground at all.
lieutenant is a concentration camp! Wire fences abound.
Spectators are herded and sorted out into lots as though for all the world this was a slave market and not a game of cricket. The stands are of wood and filthy to sit on. The dining rooms are barns, without a touch of colour or a picture on the wall.
Everywhere there is dust and dirt.
The field is rough, although the wicket is usually a good one until it rains. Then it is a strip of turf with thousands of demons prancing up and down.. at Brisbane only a Hutton could stay, let alone score runs.