Frank Ashbolt

Frank Lionel Ashbolt (11 April 1876 – 16 July 1940) was a New Zealand cricketer who played first-class cricket for Wellington from 1894 to 1901 and represented New Zealand in the days before New Zealand played Test cricket.

Frank Ashbolt
Personal information
Full nameFrank Lionel Ashbolt
Born(1876-04-11)11 April 1876
Christchurch, New Zealand
Died16 July 1940(1940-07-16) (aged 64)
Wellington, New Zealand
BattingRight-handed
BowlingRight-arm leg-spin
Domestic team information
YearsTeam
1893/94-1900/01Wellington
Career statistics
Competition First-class
Matches 21
Runs scored 330
Batting average 13.75
100s/50s 0/0
Top score 37 not out
Balls bowled 3527
Wickets 105
Bowling average 16.01
5 wickets in innings 11
10 wickets in match 3
Best bowling 8/58
Catches/stumpings 23/0
Source: Cricket Archive, 16 May 2017

Early life

Frank Ashbolt was the son of Alfred Ashbolt, who worked as the printer for The New Zealand Times and also umpired 19 first-class cricket matches from 1886 to 1898.[1][2]

Cricket career

A leg-spin bowler, Frank Ashbolt played senior club cricket in Wellington from his early teens. In the 1891–92 season, aged 15, he twice took four wickets in four balls.[3]

He made his first-class debut at 17 in 1893–94, taking 4 for 48 and 2 for 34 for Wellington in a one-wicket loss to Auckland.[4] In his next match, against the touring New South Wales team three weeks later, he opened the bowling and took 6 for 52 in the first innings of a drawn match.[5] A few weeks later, in a low-scoring victory over Hawke's Bay, he took 5 for 37 and 5 for 32, and made 30 not out at number nine (the top score of the innings) and 24 not out.[6]

In 1894–95 he took 7 for 61 and 5 for 41 in another low-scoring victory, this time over Otago.[7] The next season he took seven wickets for Wellington against another New South Wales team,[8] but he was not selected in the New Zealand team to play New South Wales a few days later.

In 1898–99 he was a member of New Zealand’s first touring team, which visited Australia in February 1899, but neither he nor the team as a whole was successful.[9] He took his best first-class figures in 1900–01 when his 5 for 39 and 8 for 58 helped Wellington to an innings victory over Hawke's Bay.[10]

Later life

He served in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force for four years during World War I, first in the Gallipoli Campaign and later on the Western Front.[2][11]

While in London in 1916 he married Gladys Rhind. They lived in Wellington, and had two daughters and a son. He worked in the insurance business.[2]

His elder brother Alfred (1870–1930) moved to Tasmania, where he was a prominent businessman, served as Tasmania's agent-general in London, and was knighted.[12]

References
  1. "Alfred Ashbolt as umpire in first-class matches". CricketArchive. Retrieved 17 May 2017.
  2. "Mr. Frank Ashbolt". Evening Post. CXXX (15). 17 July 1940. p. 9.
  3. "Cricket". New Zealand Times. LIII (9510). 23 January 1892. p. 3.
  4. "Wellington v Auckland 1893–94". CricketArchive. Retrieved 19 May 2017.
  5. "Wellington v New South Wales 1893–94". CricketArchive. Retrieved 19 May 2017.
  6. "Wellington v Hawke's Bay 1893–94". CricketArchive. Retrieved 19 May 2017.
  7. "Otago v Wellington 1894–95". CricketArchive. Retrieved 25 May 2017.
  8. "Wellington v New South Wales 1895–96". CricketArchive. Retrieved 25 May 2017.
  9. Don Neely & Richard Payne, Men in White: The History of New Zealand International Cricket, 1894–1985, Moa, Auckland, 1986, pp. 40–43.
  10. "Hawke's Bay v Wellington 1900–01". CricketArchive. Retrieved 1 June 2017.
  11. "Frank Lionel Ashbolt". Auckland War Memorial Museum. Retrieved 17 May 2017.
  12. Chapman, Peter and John Reynolds. "Ashbolt, Sir Alfred Henry (1870–1930)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Retrieved 1 June 2017.
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