Jack Mendl, arguably the greatest batsman ever to play for Oxfordshire, has died at the age of 89.

Mendl played 73 Minor Counties Championship games for the county between 1946 and 1956, scoring 5,541 runs at an average of 50.83.

His total of 20 centuries in the Championship survived until last year when it was broken by Lincolnshire's Steve Plumb.

Mendl was born in Argentina, where his father was a grain trader, on December 6, 1911.

He attended Repton School, before winning a place at University College, Oxford. He was denied a cricket Blue when he injured himself in a ski-ing accident.

Mendl started to teach at the Dragon School, Oxford in 1945, and the following season he made his debut for Oxfordshire.

In 1949, he opened the batting for the Minor Counties against Yorkshire at Lord's. In the second innings he was the victim of a young Fred Trueman, who was playing only his third game for Yorkshire.

Mendl went on to teach at Edinburgh Academy from 1950 until his retirement in 1977. He continued to play for Oxfordshire in the holidays, but also turned out for Scotland in first-class matches, including, in 1954, against Pakistan.

His obituary in The Daily Telegraph reported: "Clearly, Jack Mendl could have enjoyed a successful career in county cricket."

Joe Banton, a contemporary of Mendl's in the Oxfordshire side and arguably the county's greatest ever all-rounder, agrees.

"Everybody I know believes he could have made it at the higher level," Banton said. "He lost his best years to the war, and only started playing for us when he was 35. That makes his record all the more remarkable.

"It is difficult to compare players from different ages. People had longer to build an innings back then, but they also had to bat on uncovered wickets.

"But I would have to say that he was the best player I saw, and in most people's minds he is the best we've ever had.

"Other teams would worry so much about playing him that they would devise all sorts of strategies to stop him.

"I remember Cornwall thought they could bounce him out in a game at Instow, but Jack hooked two new balls into the sea in the opening over."