Born in
Limpsfield, Surrey, Tony Lock had the weighty backing of
HDG Leveson Gower and made his
first-class debut for
Surrey County Cricket Club at just seventeen years and eight days old on 13 July 1946, which made him the youngest ever to play for the county. However he did not play regularly until 1949. In 1951 he took 105 wickets, and broke the 100-wicket barrier every year up to and including 1962, on two occasions (1955 and 1957) claiming more than 200 victims. Lock made his England debut in the third
Test against
India in 1952, and two years later had an extraordinary summer of success against an admittedly poor
New Zealand side, finishing with 34 wickets at an
average of a mere 7.47 in the five-Test series. He was inconsistent abroad, however, failing completely on the
1958/59 tour of Australia, but again terrorising the New Zealanders in the same winter, with 13 wickets at under nine runs apiece. It was during the New Zealand leg of the tour that he saw himself on film. Shocked by what he saw, he remodelled his action. By 1961, he was back in the Test team against Australia. Not included in the English team for the
1962–63 Ashes series, he played with great success for Western Australia, returning to play for that state each winter for the rest of his career. Lock moved to
Leicestershire in 1965, and was made
captain for the following two seasons, taking the club to third place in the
County Championship in 1967. In 1967/68 he was unexpectedly recalled by England because of an injury to
Fred Titmus, and played in the last two Tests against
West Indies. He was the last man called up to play for England who was not playing for a first-class county. Though not achieving any great success with the ball, he contributed to the cause in another way, by making his highest first-class score of 89 in the first innings of the final Test at
Georgetown, Guyana. England had nine wickets down when the game (played over six days) finished, and claimed the series 1–0. Lock's remaining playing career was spent entirely with Western Australia, and fittingly his last first-class wicket was that of an Australian Test player,
Paul Sheahan. ==Retirement==