Leslie Ethelbert George Ames (3 December 1905 – 27 February 1990) was a wicket-keeper and batsman for the England cricket team and Kent County Cricket Club. In his obituary, Wisden described him as the greatest wicket-keeper-batsman of all time. He is the only wicket-keeper-batsman to score a hundred first-class centuries. Early career Born in Elham, Kent, in 1905, he was mentored by Francis MacKinnon, an ex-county player who lived in the village and then, after leaving the Harvey Grammar School, Folkestone, by Gerry Weigall, the Kent county coach, who encouraged him to learn to keep wicket so he would have a better chance of playing for the county as an all-rounder. He received the call to play for Kent while playing in West Malling and made his debut for the county on 7 July 1926 against Warwickshire at the Nevill Ground in Royal Tunbridge Wells. He scored 35 and took four catches, despite not playing as a wicket-keeper in the match. He played one more County Championship match that season before becoming a regular in the 1927 season. He went on the 1928–29 England tour of Australia, but only played in state matches. He made his debut for England in the Fifth Test against South Africa at The Oval on 17 August 1929, making a duck and taking two catches. His cap number for England is 244. Cricket career In Test cricket, Ames played 47 matches, scoring 2,434 runs with a batting average of 40.56. He took 74 catches and made 23 stumpings. In first-class cricket, he scored 37,248 runs at an average of 43.51, including 102 centuries and 176 fifties, and took 704 catches and 417 stumpings. Unusually for a wicket-keeper, he also bowled over 200 overs, taking 24 first-class wickets with a bowling average of 33.37. Ames was one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1929. He holds a number of wicket-keeping and batting records: the most dismissals in an English county cricket season (127 in 1929); the most stumpings in an English season (64 in 1932); 1000 runs and 100 dismissals in each of three seasons (1928, 1929, 1932), a feat that has only been achieved once again in county cricket; the only wicket-keeper to score 100 first-class centuries; in 1934 he was the last Englishman to score 100 or more runs before lunch in a Test match until Ian Bell did so seventy years