On the eve of the start of a new cricket season the sport is mourning the passing of one of its stars of the past -- Charles Daulphin at the age of 61.

Daulphin died at the Lahey Clinic in Boston on Monday night where he recently had surgery after suffering a mild stroke while watching the XL Bermuda Open tennis tournament earlier this month.

"I went off for a couple of days on business and came back and found him in hospital,'' said long-time friend and business partner Will Minors, the managing director of the International Sports Shop which Daulphin helped to start 30 years ago. He was a director of the store.

Soon after taking ill at the tennis tournament, a sport he got more involved in after his cricket playing days ended, Daulphin flew to Boston for further treatment.

"He had the operation and after that he called me and though he wasn't talking the best at least he could call,'' said Minors.

"He said he was feeling pretty good and was hoping to go into therapy. It's hard to believe, the whole night last night I don't think I slept one wink.

It's difficult to comprehend.'' Minors played both cricket and soccer with Daulphin in the 1950s and '60s with Pond Hill Stars and Pembroke Juniors. Their friendship stretched further back than that.

"...All our lives practically, from kid days,'' said Minors. "We came up playing rubber ball together in the Pond Hill area.

"We were in the Pond Hill Stars and Pembroke Juniors together. A whole bunch of us came up together and in those days you stayed with one team until your career was finished.'' Daulphin was a defender for Pembroke Juniors and represented Bermuda on a few occasions.

But he also excelled in cricket as an allrounder and played Cup Match for Somerset between 1955 and '67.

Daulphin left his name in the Cup Match record books, scoring 405 runs in 20 innings at an average of 20.25 with a highest score of 67. He was also one of the top bowlers in the averages, claiming 27 wickets at 16.41 each from 153 overs as an opening bowler. The 116 he and Sheridan Raynor added for the fifth wicket in the 1964 match still remains a record for that wicket.

Gladstone (Sad) Brown remembers playing with Daulphin at Devonshire Rec.

"Charles encouraged me to come to Pond Hill Stars,'' recalled Brown. "I was playing with Young Men's Social Club and he asked me to come and play with Pond Hill Stars and shortly after that Pond Hill Stars went with Devonshire Rec.

"I don't ever recall Charles getting angry on the field. If the umpire gave him out he just walked. Charles was one of those guys who always gave good advice.'' Daulphin had a concrete cricket pitch built in his yard by his father which Pond Hill and Devonshire Rec. used to train on.

Daulphin's love of sports never waned as he played in the testimonial matches for former players in the last few years and only recently spent three and a half weeks in the Caribbean watching Test matches between the West Indies and England in Barbados and Antigua.

In the last couple of decades his love of tennis grew, too, and he ran coaching clinics at the former Hamiltonian Hotel.

"We were pleased that such a great cricketer decided to lend his talents to tennis,'' said Bermuda Lawn Tennis Association president David Lambert.

"He was a very good coach, the tournaments he ran at the Hamiltonian were some of the best. He inspirired a lot of people to take up the sport. He'll be missed.'' Added Minors: "After he finished with cricket he wanted to keep active and he wasn't all that enthused about golf, so he took up tennis. But then he started having problems with his shoulder and couldn't do a lot of playing and so he took courses in coaching and started teaching tennis.

"He just loved it and was able to acquire the concession at Hamiltonian and that got him heavily involved in tennis. He was also one of the staunch people behind the walking club.'' Daulphin, who was accompanied in Boston by family members, is survived by wife Vicky. Son Karl Roberts, who plays for Somerset Trojans, adopted his father's love of sports.

OBITUARY OBT