Maurice Tremlett

Maurice Fletcher Tremlett (5 July 1923 – 30 July 1984)[1] was an English cricketer, who played for Somerset, Central Districts and England.

Maurice Tremlett
Personal information
Full nameMaurice Fletcher Tremlett
Born(1923-07-05)5 July 1923
Stockport, Cheshire, England
Died30 July 1984(1984-07-30) (aged 61)
Southampton, Hampshire, England
BattingRight-handed
BowlingRight-arm Fast-medium
RelationsTim Tremlett (son), Chris Tremlett (grandson)
International information
National side
Test debut (cap 331)21 January 1948 v West Indies
Last Test27 March 1948 v West Indies
Domestic team information
YearsTeam
1947–1960Somerset
Career statistics
Competition Test First-class
Matches 3 389
Runs scored 20 16,038
Batting average 6.66 25.37
100s/50s –/– 16/83
Top score 18* 185
Balls bowled 492 22,093
Wickets 4 351
Bowling average 56.50 30.70
5 wickets in innings 11
10 wickets in match
Best bowling 2/98 8/31
Catches/stumpings –/– 257/–
Source: Cricinfo, 28 August 2009

For a couple of years in the late 1940s, Tremlett looked as though he might be the answer to some of England's post-war cricketing woes. A tall, curly-haired all-rounder, Tremlett had a whippy fast-medium bowling action that moved the ball off the pitch and was a pugnacious right-handed batsman, strong at driving.

Life and career

Tremlett was born in Stockport, Cheshire.[1]

His first-class debut was sensational.[1] Having been on the Somerset staff since before World War II, he was finally picked for the first game of the 1947 season, at Lord's against Middlesex, the team that would dominate that season's County Championship. Tremlett took three wickets in the first innings, and then five in the space of five overs in the second, to finish with match figures of 8 for 86. He then followed that up by making an undefeated 19, and sharing in a last-wicket partnership that enabled Somerset to win the match by one wicket.

By the end of that first season, Tremlett had 656 runs and 65 wickets and he was chosen, with several other young cricketers, for the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) tour to the West Indies, where he opened the bowling in three of the four Test matches. He was not a success, taking only four wickets and scoring just 20 runs in the Tests, and on the tour as a whole, his wickets were expensive and he scored few runs.[2] Yet after another successful county season in 1948 – 1056 runs and 86 wickets, both at an improved average – he was picked for a second MCC tour in 1948–49, this time to South Africa. Though he scored his maiden century in the match against a Natal side at Pietermaritzburg, Tremlett was never in contention for a Test place and Wisden 's report on the tour said that his "bowling lacked control".[3] After playing in South Africa, he was later one of many signatories in a letter to The Times on 17 July 1958 opposing 'the policy of apartheid' in international sport and defending 'the principle of racial equality which is embodied in the Declaration of the Olympic Games'.[4]

Over the next few years, Tremlett's batting developed to the point where, in 1951, he scored more than 2,000 runs. In all, he scored 1,000 runs in a season ten times. But his bowling became more and more erratic until, by the mid 1950s, he was used only as an occasional change bowler.[1] From 1956, he captained Somerset, their first professional skipper, charged with the job of restoring the fortunes of a county that had finished bottom of the Championship table for each of the preceding four seasons. As a captain, he was a great success, leading the side in 1958 to third position in the Championship, its highest placing ever. He stood down from the captaincy after the 1959 season and, after a few games in 1960, he retired to a job with Guinness.

His son, Tim Tremlett, was a fast-medium bowler for Hampshire in the 1970s and 1980s, and later the county's coach. Tim's son (and Maurice's grandson), Chris Tremlett, also a fast-medium bowler for Hampshire and later for Surrey, played for England in Tests and One Day Internationals.

Maurice Tremlett died in Southampton in 1984, at the age of 61.[1]

References

  1. Bateman, Colin (1993). If The Cap Fits. Tony Williams Publications. p. 173. ISBN 1-869833-21-X.
  2. "MCC Team in West Indies". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (1949 ed.). Wisden. pp. 739–760.
  3. "MCC Team in South Africa 1948–49". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (1950 ed.). Wisden. pp. 758–794.
  4. Brown and Hogsbjerg, Apartheid is not a game, 16
  • Brown, Geoff and Hogsbjerg, Christian. Apartheid is not a Game: Remembering the Stop the Seventy Tour campaign. London: Redwords, 2020. ISBN 9781912926589.
Sporting positions
Preceded by
Gerry Tordoff
Somerset County Cricket Captain
1956–1959
Succeeded by
Harold Stephenson
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