John Maurice Read (1859-1929) Test Cap # 36

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Full name John Maurice Read
Born February 9, 1859, Thames Ditton, Surrey
Died February 17, 1929, Winchester, Hampshire (aged 70 years 8 days)
Major teams England, Surrey
Batting style Right-hand bat
Bowling style Right-arm fast-medium

Profile
By the standards of the time, Maurice Read had a relatively short career. He played for 15 seasons before, at the age of 36 and after a season in which he had scored 1031 runs at 31, he retired to take an appointment on the Tichborne Park estate. Read made his debut for Surrey in 1880 and immediately won a regular place in the side as a hard-hitting batsman, an occasional fast bowler and an excellent specialist third man. The Surrey side at that time was strong - they won five Championships in six seasons - and for almost a decade Read was also a fixture in the England team, making four tours to Australia and playing in early Tests in South Africa.

Arthur Shrewsbury (1856-1903) Test Cap # 35

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Full name Arthur Shrewsbury
Born April 11, 1856, New Lenton, Nottinghamshire
Died May 19, 1903, Gedling, Nottinghamshire (aged 47 years 38 days)
Major teams England, Nottinghamshire
Batting style Right-hand bat
Bowling style Right-arm bowler
Relation Brother - W Shrewsbury

Profile

© The Cricketer International

© The Cricketer International

For almost a decade starting in the late 1880s Arthur Shrewsbury was arguably the finest batsman in the world. WG Grace, his main rival for that accolade, was once asked who he'd most like to have in his side, and said simply: "Give me Arthur." With a game built around an impregnable defence based on his pads, Shrewsbury was a magnificent runmaker especially on bad or so-called sticky wickets, scoring many of his greatest hundreds on pitches his partners found impossible to master.

 The best-known of these knocks came against Australia at Lord's in 1886, when he scored a masterly 164 against the might of Fred Spofforth, on a pitch deemed "impossible" by his peers. Seven years later he repeated the feat, with a well-made 106 - again at Lord's against Australia - in equally trying conditions, on a sticky wicket against Charles "The Terror" Turner. Even in 1902, his final season, by which time he was 47, Shrewsbury managed to top the first-class averages (1250 runs at 50), as he had done half-a-dozen times in his heyday. Sadly, though, he shot himself the following year after a bout of depression.A quiet, humble man, his passing was mourned all over the cricket-playing world - but especially in Nottinghamshire, the county which he served grandly for nearly three decades.

Test debut Australia v England at Melbourne, Dec 31, 1881 - Jan 4, 1882
Last Test England v Australia at Manchester, Aug 24-26, 1893
First-class span 1875-1902

William Henry Scotton (1856-1893) Test Cap # 34

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Full name William Henry Scotton
Born January 15, 1856, Nottingham
Died July 9, 1893, St John's Wood, London (aged 37 years 175 days)
Major teams England, Nottinghamshire
Batting style Left-hand bat
Bowling style Left-arm fast-medium
Relation Cousin - G Howitt

Profile
William Scotton, who died by his own hand on July 9, was born on January 15, 1856, and was thus in his thirty-eighth year. For some time previous to his tragic end he had been in a very low, depressed condition, the fact that he had lost his place in the Notts eleven having, so it was stated at the inquest, preyed very seriously upon his mind. Scotton played his first match at Lord"s for Sixteen Colts of England against the M.C.C. on the 11th and 12th of May, 1874, scoring on that occasion 19 and 0. He was engaged as a groundman by the M.C.C. in that year and 1875, and after an engagement at Kennington Oval returned to the service of the M.C.C., of whose ground staff he was a member at the time of his death. His powers were rather slow to ripen, and he had been playing for several years before he obtained anything like a first-rate position.

Richard Pilling (1855-1891) Test Cap # 33

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Full name Richard Pilling
Born August 11, 1855, Old Warden, Bedfordshire
Died March 28, 1891, Old Trafford, Manchester, Lancashire (aged 35 years 229 days)
Major teams England, Lancashire
Batting style Right-hand bat
Fielding position Wicketkeeper

profile

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Richard Pilling was born at Bedford on July 5, 1855, and, so far as we are aware, it was not until many years later that he became associated with Lancashire-the only county with which he has had any cricket connection. His first appearance in the Lancashire eleven dates back to the season of 1877, and the present writer can well recollect being immensely struck with the work done behind the wicket by the then almost unknown player in a match at Maidstone between Lancashire and Kent. His appearance for Lancashire was very happily timed, as, with Mr. E. Jackson so often prevented by business reasons from playing, the northern county might have been left without a first-class wicket-keeper. Almost from the first time he was seen in the Lancashire team it was felt that a great wicket-keeper had arisen, and he at once sprang into the front rank. From August, 1877, down to the end of the season of 1889 he was a regular member of the Lancashire eleven, and several pages of WISDEN might easily be filled with a record of his doings. For all the hard work he has done in the cricket field, Pilling has never been constitutionally robust, and we believe that the serious illness which kept him out of the cricket field in 1890 originated in a severe cold which he caught during the winter when taking part in a football match. At the end of the summer he journeyed to Australia for the benefit of his health, leaving in the same steamer that took a large proportion of the Australian team. Much might be said about Pilling's special excellence as a wicket-keeper, but we will content ourselves by expressing a very strong opinion that during the last twelve years he has had no superior but Blackham.

Edmund Peate (1855-1900) Test Cap # 32

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Full name Edmund Peate
Born March 2, 1855, Holbeck, Leeds, Yorkshire
Died March 11, 1900, Newlay, Horsforth, Yorkshire (aged 45 years 9 days)
Major teams England, Yorkshire
Batting style Left-hand bat
Bowling style Slow left-arm orthodox

Profile

© ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Ted Peate's career was brief but never dull. He started as part of a traveling side - known as the `Clown Cricketers' - and was spotted and recruited by Yorkshire. A legspinner who relied on accuracy rather than great turn, he was at his best on wet wickets and, for a few seasons, was arguably the best bowler in the world. In 1881-82 at The Oval he opened the bowling and took 4 for 31 and 4 for 40 (England lost by seven runs) and in 1883 took 8 for 5 against Surrey and was criticised for ending the match early and so halving gate receipts! But he fell foul of the despotic Lord Hawke at Yorkshire and his county career was effectively ended by 1886 - he was still only 31. He continued to play with great success in Leeds club cricket, despite an ever expanding girth, and died of pneumonia a few days after his 45th birthday. Wisden wrote that "he would have lasted longer had he ordered his life more carefully".

William Evans Midwinter (1851-1890) Test Cap No: 31

Full name William Evans Midwinter
Born June 19, 1851, Lower Meend, St Briavels, Gloucestershire, England
Died December 03, 1890, Yarra Bend, Kew, Melbourne, Victoria, (aged 39y 167d)
Major teams England,Middlesex
Batting style Right hand bat

Profile

Billy Midwinter, who played Test cricket for both England and Australia, was a sound batsman and useful medium-pacer, was born in Gloucestershire, but after emigrating he made his Test debut against England, in the inaugural Test at Melbourne in 1876-77. He played eight Tests for Australia, either side of his four appearances for England, which came in Australia in 1881-82. Midwinter was famously kidnapped by WG Grace in 1878, when he was due to play for Australia against Middlesex, but was instead taken to play for Gloucestershire against Surrey at The Oval. He suffered mental problems after the death of his wife and two children, and died in an asylum in Melbourne in 1890.

William Evans Midwinter (19 June 1851 – 3 December 1890) was a cricketer who played four Test matches for England, sandwiched in between eight Tests that he played for Australia. Midwinter holds a unique place in cricket history as the only cricketer to have played for both Australia and England in Test Matches against each other.Midwinter made his Test debut in the first ever Test match in 1877, playing for Australia, where he had emigrated aged nine, against the country of his birth. He took five wickets in the first innings against England in Melbourne.