two Gentlemen v Players matches in 1947, at Lord's and Scarborough, and again at Lord's in 1948. He resigned as captain of Lancashire at the end of his second season to concentrate on his dental practice in Liverpool. He played for the North of England against the South in 1947, 1949 and 1950, and played his last first-class match in 1950. Later life Cranston practised as a dentist in Aigburth until 1990. He was president of Lancashire County Cricket Club in 1993–94, and was a president of the Lancashire Former Players' Association. He married twice. He first married Mary Joyce Harrison in 1942. They had a daughter and a son, but were divorced in 1964. He married Joanne Legg later that year; they had a son. He became the oldest living former English Test cricketer on 28 December 2006, on the death of Norman 'Mandy' Mitchell-Innes. Following his own death eleven days later in Southport, that distinction passed to Arthur McIntyre. References England's oldest surviving Test cricketer dies, Cricinfo, 9 January 2007 Obituary, The Daily Telegraph, 10 January 2007 Obituary, The Independent, 23 January 2007 Obituary, The Times, 27 January 2007 Obituary, The Guardian, 13 March 2007 England Test cricketers England Test cricket captains English cricketers English dentists Royal Navy officers of World War II Lancashire cricketers Lancashire cricket captains 1917 births 2007 deaths People educated at Liverpool College Cricketers from Liverpool Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Gentlemen cricketers North v South cricketers H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI cricketers 20th-century dentists