A-Z (C11)

A-Z (C11)

November 26, 2017, 12:56 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized

Back again (fingers crossed)

Cowley, Nigel Geoffrey (373) born Shaftesbury, Dorset, 1.3.1953. Off-spinning all-rounder Cowley played for the 2nd XI as Gilliat’s team won the Championship in 1973 but with the departure of O’Sullivan he came into the side in the following season, although he bowled very little for the first three years (17 wickets). For almost the whole of that first season it seemed he would start his first-class career as a County Champion, but when rain wrecked the last two matches at Bournemouth he was one Hampshire’s disappointed runners-up.

While Cowley became a useful Championship cricketer, it would be in limited-overs cricket that he would enjoy most success – and make most impact – beginning perhaps in the 1977 B&H semi-final when he arrived following a Procter hat-trick at 18-4. Cowley added 111 with David Turner and top-scored with 59, albeit not quite enough to take Hampshire to Lord’s. He hardly played when Hampshire won the Sunday League in 1975, but he contributed to the next two titles in 1978 (when he was capped) & 1986.

His highest first-class score of 109* came at Taunton in 1977, with a second first-class century v Leicestershire at Southampton in 1982, to which he added a career best 6-48. In 1978 he had taken 56 first-class wickets at around 30 apiece, and he matched that total in 1984, and in three other seasons passed 40 wickets. 1984 was also the season in which he passed 1,000 runs for the only time. In 1986 he was a member of the Hampshire side who won their third and last Sunday League and in 1988 he played in their first Lord’s final, making a significant contribution with 1-17 in his 11 overs, and executing the throw from deep, to run-out Derbyshire’s most threatening batsman, John Morris.

After just one first-class match in 1989, he left Hampshire and joined Glamorgan for one season, after which he became a first-class umpire, retiring in 2017. He scored 6, 773 runs and took 425 wickets for Hampshire in 257 first-class matches, to which he added almost 3,000 runs and 233 wickets in 288 limited-overs games. For fifteen years he was a valuable all-rounder in both forms, going about his work in a quiet, efficient and determined manner, alongside some of the biggest stars to play for the county.

Cox, Rupert Michael Fiennes (414) born Guildford 20.8.1967. Rupert Cox was a promising left-handed batsman who had followed Mark Nicholas from Bradfield School but found it difficult to break into the strong Hampshire batting line-up. This was not made easier because he made his first-class debut in 1990 – the same season as another left-hander, David Gower. When Gower and Robin Smith went to the Test Match v India, Cox made his first-class debut in July at Arundel, scoring 35* in the second innings, and two weeks later, with Gower and Robin Smith absent again, he scored 104* at Worcester, sharing an undefeated partnership of 161 with Tony Middleton. Gower and Smith then returned for a match at Taunton, and Cox was dropped. He played a few matches each year for five seasons, and as captain of the 2nd XI was seen as a possible successor to Nicholas, but it was not to be. He was one of a number of promising Hampshire youngsters of his generation whose careers never fulfilled their apparent promise.

Crane Mason Sydney (535) born Shoreham-by-Sea 18.2.1997. leg-break/googly bowler and right-hand batsman. Debut 2015 (as with other current players, to be completed near publication)

Crawley, Cosmo Stafford (220 – Amateur) born Chelsea 27.5.1904, died Westminster 10.2.1989. Right-handed batsman Crawley, came from a large cricketing family and played cricket at Harrow School, then first-class for Oxford University (no ‘Blue’), Free Foresters, Harlequins and Middlesex (1929). Six years previously, he played once for Hampshire v Oxford University just before his 19th birthday, scoring 14 & eight in a four-wicket defeat. At University he won ‘Blues’ for Royal Tennis and Rackets.

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