Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Full name | Peter Bernard Wight | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Georgetown, British Guiana | 25 June 1930|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Died | 31 December 2015 85) | (aged|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nickname | Rajah [1] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Batting | Right-handed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bowling | Right-arm offbreak | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Role | Batsman | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Domestic team information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Years | Team | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1953–1965 | Somerset | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1963/64 | Canterbury | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1950/51 | British Guiana | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
First-class debut | 10 March 1951 British Guiana v Jamaica | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Last First-class | 3 July 1965 Somerset v Nottinghamshire | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Umpiring information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
FC umpired | 567 (1966–1995) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
LA umpired | 462 (1966–1995) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Career statistics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Source:CricketArchive,16 February 2010 |
Peter Bernard Wight (25 June 1930 - 31 December 2015) [2] was a Guyanese first-class cricketer who played for Somerset,Canterbury and British Guiana. Wight was a prolific run scorer at the top of the order,scoring 16,965 runs during his thirteen years at Somerset;and at the time of his death only Harold Gimblett had made more runs for the county. After playing,he became an umpire in English first-class cricket,standing in matches from 1966 to 1995.
His family was a mix of Scottish and Portuguese blood with good cricketing talent. His cousin,Vibart Wight had represented the West Indies twice, [3] acting as vice-captain in the third Test against England in 1928. [1] His elder brother Leslie Wight also went on to play Test cricket for the West Indies, [4] while his other brothers represented British Guiana at cricket,hockey,tennis and soccer. [1]
Wight came to England at the age of 20,arriving on a cargo boat in 1951. The conditions in England came as a shock to him,with rationing and outside toilets still prevalent. [1] He had arrived in the country with the intention of studying engineering,but his employer in Burnley refused to release him,as promised,for his motor mechanic exams. [1] With this,he emigrated to Toronto before returning to Lancashire to work in a factory. [1]
In 1953,he was scoring runs for Burnley Cricket Club in the Lancashire League when his brother-in-law suggested he try out for Somerset. He impressed in the nets and was selected to play in a trial game,against the touring Australians. A shaky start saw him dismissed for a first-innings duck but he scored a century in the second-innings [5] and was offered a Somerset contract. [1]
Wight passed 1,000 runs in a season for the first of ten successive years during 1954;his first full season with the county,totalling 1,343 runs in 50 first-class innings. [6] The following year he made his maiden County Championship century,with 106 in the first innings of a nine wicket victory over Worcestershire. [7] The next three seasons proceeded in a similar fashion,with Wight scoring runs with an average fluctuating between the high twenties and low thirties,failing to make the big scores needed to boost it further. [6]
It was during the 1959 season that he truly established himself as one of the leading batsmen in English cricket,despite missing a number of games due to eye problems. [8] He finished the season with 1,874 runs, [8] and with the joint second highest batting average (of those playing more than 2 innings) in the County Championship,behind only M. J. K. Smith. [9] His career best score came also during this season,when he achieved 222* for Somerset against the visiting Kent at the County Ground,Taunton. [10]
When he was released by Somerset in 1965 he had scored 16,965 runs for the county. [11] After retiring he opened a cricket school in Bath and spent 30 summers as an umpire. He umpired 567 games in total and when added to his games as a player he holds the record for most first-class appearances in Post-War England. [1]
Daryl Keith Henry Mitchell is an English former first-class cricketer. Primarily a right-handed batsman who often opened the innings, Mitchell also bowled right-arm medium pace. He played for Worcestershire. He was appointed vice-captain for the 2010 season, and made captain when Vikram Solanki resigned in mid-August.
Nicholas Richard Denis Compton is a South African-born English former Test and first-class cricketer who most recently played for Middlesex County Cricket Club. The grandson of Denis Compton, he represented England in 16 Test matches.
Norman Stewart "Mandy" Mitchell-Innes was an amateur cricketer for Somerset, who played in one Test match for England in 1935. Between 1931 and 1949 Mitchell-Innes played 132 first-class matches, appearing 69 times for Somerset, and 43 times for Oxford University. In these matches he scored 6,944 runs, including 13 centuries and a top score of 207. He was well-regarded for the grace of his batting, but his cricket career was limited by both hay fever and his overseas work commitments.
Michael Burns is an English first-class list cricket umpire and former first-class cricketer who played county cricket for Warwickshire and Somerset in a first-class career which spanned from 1992 until 2005. He also played Minor Counties cricket for Cumberland and Cornwall. An adaptable cricketer, he appeared for Cumberland and Warwickshire as a wicket-keeper, but when he moved to Somerset he developed into an aggressive batsman who bowled at medium-pace when needed.
Mervyn John Kitchen, is a former English first-class cricketer and international umpire. In his playing days he was a left-handed batsman for Somerset County Cricket Club, making 15,230 runs in his 354 first-class games between 1960 and 1979. He topped the Somerset averages in 1966 and 1968. After retiring as a player, he went on to become a first-class cricket umpire. He umpired in 20 Test matches and 28 One-Day Internationals before retiring from that at the age of 65 in 2005.
Karl Robert Brown is an English cricketer. He is a right-handed batsman and a right-arm medium-pace bowler who played for Lancashire until 2018. Brown made his first-class debut in 2006 and his list A debut the following year. Between 2005 and 2007, Brown played 15 Youth One Day Internationals. In 2011, Brown scored his maiden centuries in first-class and list A cricket and debuted for Lancashire in twenty20s.
Ronald Ernest Bird (4 April 1915 – 20 February 1985) was an English cricketer who played 195 first-class matches in the years after the Second World War. 190 of these were for Worcestershire, while the other five were for Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). He captained Worcestershire between 1952 and 1954, though he had acted as such on many occasions during the previous two seasons when official captain Bob Wyatt was unavailable. He usually batted at number four, while his fast-medium bowling was of the occasional variety: he never took a season's tally of wickets into double figures.
Paul Raymond Pollard is an English cricket umpire and former first-class cricketer. As a player, he was an opening batsman who played over 300 games in first-class and List A cricket for Nottinghamshire before a shorter stay with Worcestershire. After retiring from top-line county cricket in 2002, he had one season with Lincolnshire and appeared twice for them in List A matches. His medium-pace bowling was of the occasional variety, and with it he captured four first-class wickets. He has also coached, including in Zimbabwe.
Graham Atkinson was a cricketer who played first-class and List A cricket for Somerset and Lancashire. He was born in Lofthouse, Wakefield, Yorkshire, England.
Frank Harry was an English cricketer, who played 69 first-class games for Lancashire in the early years of the 20th century, and then another seven for Worcestershire just after the First World War. He also turned out for Durham in the Minor Counties Championship between 1912 and 1914. After his retirement from playing, he stood in 21 games as an umpire, all in 1921.
Charles Victor Tarbox, sometimes known as "Percy" (2 July 1891 – 15 June 1978) was an English cricketer who played over 200 first-class games for Worcestershire in the 1920s. He also played at minor counties level for Hertfordshire, and later still stood as a first-class umpire in both England and South Africa. Tarbox's career statistics were fairly modest, but as his obituary in Wisden noted, he frequently chipped in with a few useful runs or wickets, valuable commodities for the generally weak Worcestershire sides of the day.
Steven Joseph "Steve" O'Shaughnessy is a former English professional cricketer who played for Lancashire and Worcestershire in the 1980s, and then had a substantial career in Minor Counties cricket with Cumberland. Since retiring from playing, he has become an umpire, and was promoted in December 2010 to the first-class panel for the 2011 season.
Peter Randall Johnson was a cricketer who played for Cambridge University, Somerset and several amateur sides in a long first-class cricket career that stretched from 1900 to 1927. During his career, he appears to have been known, somewhat formally, as "P. R. Johnson"; modern websites refer to him as "Randall Johnson". Somerset colleague Jack MacBryan, who didn't like him, called him "Peter Johnson".
Claud Neville Woolley was an English cricketer who played first-class cricket for Gloucestershire and Northamptonshire. He also served as a first-class umpire and stood in one Test during the 1948 Ashes series. A right-handed batsman and right-arm slow-medium bowler, he was the older brother of Frank who had a more successful playing career, including representing England in 64 Tests.
Aaron Lockett was an English footballer and cricketer. He played football in the Football League for Port Vale, and also appeared for Stoke and Stafford Rangers. He played cricket for Staffordshire between 1920 and 1939.
Alan Geoffrey Thomas Whitehead is a former first-class cricketer and umpire.
Christopher Herbert Millington Greetham played first-class cricket for Somerset County Cricket Club from 1957 to 1966 as a middle-order batsman and a medium-pace bowler. Greetham was a tall, fair-haired right-handed batsman usually used in Somerset's late middle order and a right-arm seam bowler who, for a couple of seasons in the early 1960s, took enough wickets to be classed as an all-rounder. He was considered a good cover fielder, with a strong and accurate throw.
Frank Henry Vigar was an English cricketer who played first-class cricket for Essex County Cricket Club between 1938 and 1954. A right-handed batsman, and leg break bowler, Vigar served as an all-rounder with 8,858 runs at 26.28 and 241 wickets at 37.90. From his rained-off debut in 1938, Vigar went on to play 257 matches for his county. His greatest success came in the "golden summer" of 1947, where he scored 1,735 runs and took 64 wickets. A partnership with Peter Smith of 218 for the final wicket remains an Essex record.
Manek Pallon Bajana was an Indian amateur cricketer who played 55 first-class cricket matches between 1911 and 1920. Originally a member of the Indian team which toured England in 1911, he remained in the country and joined Somerset County Cricket Club, for which he played as an opening batsman until 1920. During his nine-year first-class cricket career, Bajana scored 1,975 runs at an average of 20.78. He scored three centuries, and made his highest score in 1920, scoring 115 runs against Cambridge University.
Somerset County Cricket Club competed in four domestic competitions during the 2009 English cricket season: the first division of the County Championship, the Friends Provident Trophy, the first division of the NatWest Pro40 League and the Twenty20 Cup. Through their performance in the Twenty20 Cup, the team qualified for the Champions League Twenty20. They enjoyed a successful season, but fell short of winning any competitions, prompting Director of Cricket Brian Rose to say "We've had enough of being cricket's nearly men."