LONDON: Former England and Yorkshire captain Ray Illingworth has died, aged 89, BBC reported on Saturday. The all-rounder, who led England to an away Test series victory over Australia in 1970-71, had been undergoing radiotherapy for esophageal cancer. Illingworth played 61 Tests for England between 1958-1973, scoring 1,836 Test runs at an average of 23.24 and claimed 122 wickets at 31.20; he was captain 31 times, winning 12 of those matches. He guided Yorkshire to three successive County Championship titles from 1966. “We are deeply saddened to learn that Ray Illingworth has passed away,” wrote Yorkshire County Cricket Club on Twitter. “Our thoughts are with Ray’s family and the wider Yorkshire family who held Ray so dear to their hearts.” Born in Pudsey — between Leeds and Bradford — on 8 June 1932, Illingworth began playing at his local club in Farsley, where he would reside for nearly all of his life. He started his first-class career in 1951, two months after his 19th birthday — and it continued for a decade after he played the last of his 61 Tests, before retirement finally came in 1983, aged 51. Illingworth played for Yorkshire during one of their most successful periods, winning seven county championships in nine years from 1959. In 787 first class games, Illingworth scored 24,134 runs at an average of 28.06 and took 2,072 wickets at 20.27. He moved into television commentary before taking over as England’s chairman of selectors in 1993 and combined that with the job of national team coach for a controversial spell from 1995-96. He had a heart attack in 2011 during his second year as Yorkshire’s president, and revealed in November 2021 that he was receiving treatment for oesophageal cancer. At the time of his death, he was the oldest player to have featured in a one-day international, having led England against Australia in the world’s first ODI in 1971. After watching his wife Shirley’s death from cancer earlier this year, Illingworth offered his support for law changes over assisted dying. “I don’t want to have the last 12 months that my wife had,” he said. “She had a terrible time going from hospital to hospital and in pain. “I believe in assisted dying. The way my wife was, there was no pleasure in life in the last 12 months, and I don’t see the point of living like that. But we don’t have assisted dying in England yet, so you don’t have the option do you? They are debating it and I think it will come eventually. A lot of doctors are against it, but if they had to live like my wife did in her last 12 months they might change their minds.”