Tony Buss

Antony "Tony" Buss was an English cricketer who spent his whole first-class career with Sussex, from 1958 to 1974. A right-arm fast-medium bowler and lower-order right-handed batsman, he took 958 first-class wickets at an average of 25.04, with a best return of eight for 23, and scored 4,415 runs with a highest score of 83. In List A cricket he added 140 wickets. He died on 7 September 2026, six days after his 87th birthday.

He was born on 1 September 1939 in the East Sussex village of Brightling, whose cricket club has long been tied to the Buss family. Alan Oakman spotted him playing for Bexhill Grammar School and brought him to Hove for coaching when he was only 14. On leaving school in 1955 he became more closely linked with Sussex. He was then regarded as an off-spinner, but the county already had Robin Marlar, Ron Bell and Oakman in that role, so he converted to medium pace and then fast-medium.

Buss first played for Sussex in 1958 and took 50 wickets in a season for the first time in 1960. National Service with the Royal Air Force interrupted his progress. When he returned he was stronger and a little faster, and he established himself in county cricket in 1963, the year he won his county cap. In that season and the four that followed he took 515 first-class wickets. Between 1965 and 1967 he took 100 wickets in a season three times, and he remains the last Sussex bowler to perform that feat. In 1965 he completed hat-tricks against Cambridge University at Fenner's and against Derbyshire at Hove. His best figures, eight for 23, came against Nottinghamshire at Hove in 1966. In limited-overs cricket he also took a hat-trick in the John Player League against Warwickshire at Hastings in 1973.

Accuracy and economy were as much his trademarks as raw pace. Sussex's early Gillette Cup success, winning the trophy in 1963 and 1964 under Ted Dexter, owed much to tight bowling from Buss, John Snow, Ian Thomson and Don Bates as well as to the batting of Dexter and Jim Parks. It was Buss's misfortune to bowl in the shadow of two outstanding opening partners who would play for England: Thomson, ten years his senior, and Snow, two years his junior. As a batsman he liked the night-watchman role and once made 83 against Northamptonshire at Hove in 1969. Late in his career he captained Sussex on occasions when Tony Greig was away with England.

His younger brother Mike Buss also played for Sussex, from 1961 to 1978. Supporters sometimes called them Omni and Mini. After retiring as a player in 1974, Tony became the club's coach and then manager, finally leaving Hove in 1980. Sussex Cricket remembered him as one of the finest fast-medium bowlers the county had produced since the war. BBC Sport and the county both marked his death on 7 September 2026. He is remembered for three seasons of a hundred wickets, for those Gillette Cup years, and for a long, loyal service to Sussex cricket.