John Vernon Wild CMG OBE (26 April 1915 — 21 July 2012) was an English first-class cricketer, educator and colonial administrator in the Uganda Protectorate.

Wild was born at Wallasey in April 1915. He was educated at Taunton School,^[1] before matriculating to King's College, Cambridge.^[2] While studying at Cambridge, he played first-class cricket for Cambridge University Cricket Club in 1938, making eleven appearances.^[3] Playing primarily as a spin bowler in the Cambridge side, Wild took 29 wickets in his eleven matches at a bowling average of 36.10; he took two five wicket hauls, with best figures of six for 125.^[4] As a batsman, he scored 193 runs at an average of 11.35, with a highest score of 34.^[5]

After graduating from Cambridge, Wild joined the Colonial Service in the Protectorate of Uganda in 1938.^[1] He was commissioned into the British Army as a second lieutenant in September 1943.^[6] He resumed his colonial service following the war, becoming the chairman of the Ugandan Committee on Self-Government in 1959, which came to be known as the Wild Committee.^[1] He was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1955 Birthday Honours in recognition of his services in Uganda,^[7] and was later made a companion to the Order of St Michael and St George in the 1960 Birthday Honours.^[8] While in Uganda, Wild wrote three books on the country and became fluent in the Acholi dialect.^[1] He left the Colonial Service in 1960 and returned to England, where he took up a post teaching maths at Hele's School, Exeter. He left there in 1971 to become a maths lecturer at Exeter College, where he remained until 1976.^[1]

Wild died at the nursing home in which was resident in at Burwash in Sussex in July 2012.

• John Wild at ESPNcricinfo