Arthur Fielder (19 July 1877 – 30 August 1949) was an English professional

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

er who played as a

fast bowler Fast bowling (also referred to as pace bowling) is one of two main approaches to bowling in the sport of cricket, the other being spin bowling. Practitioners of pace bowling are usually known as ''fast'' bowlers, ''quicks'', or ''pacemen''. ...

for Kent County Cricket Club and the

England cricket team The England cricket team represents England and Wales in international cricket. Since 1997, it has been governed by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), having been previously governed by Marylebone Cricket Club (the MCC) since 1903. Engl ...

from 1900 to 1914. He played a major role in Kent's four

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...

wins in the years before

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and toured Australia twice with the England team making six

Test match Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to: * Test cricket * Test match (indoor cricket) * Test match (rugby union) * Test match (rugby league) * Test match (association football) ...

appearances. He was chosen as one of

Wisden ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

's Cricketers of the Year in 1907.

Early life

Fielder was born at Plaxtol near

Tonbridge Tonbridge ( ) is a market town in Kent, England, on the River Medway, north of Royal Tunbridge Wells, south west of Maidstone and south east of London. In the administrative borough of Tonbridge and Malling, it had an estimated populat ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

in 1877. He grew up the son of a farm bailiff and worked on a hop farm in his early years.Arthur Fielder – Cricketer of the Year 1907
''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', 1907. Retrieved 2015-02-19. In 1897 he joined Kent's newly established Tonbridge nursery at the Angel Ground under Captain William McCanlis. This was a successful player development programme which allowed young professional cricketers to be trained and developed the nucleus of the Kent sides of the early 20th century.A brief history
Kent County Cricket Club. Retrieved 2016-02-19.Birley D (2013) ''A social history of British cricket'' p.183
Available online
. Retrieved 2016-02-19. Fielder also spent a year on the ground staff at the

Marylebone Cricket Club Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influence ...

(MCC) in 1904.

Cricket career

Fielder made his

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officia ...

debut in 1900, playing for Kent against

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

at the County Ground, Leyton.First-class matches played by Arthur Fielder
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2016-02-19. He went wicketless and was out without scoring in the match.
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2016-02-19. He went on to play 249 first-class matches, taking 1,277 wickets at an average of 21.02 and featured in four

winning sides for his County.Arthur Fielder
CricInfo. Retrieved 2016-02-19. Fielder broke into the Kent side properly in 1903, replacing fast bowler Bill Bradley in the First XI and showing what

called "capital form".Obituary – Arthur Fielder
''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', 1949. Retrieved 2106-02-19. After such a successful season Fielder was selected for the

for the tour of Australia in 1903–04. Fielder did not enjoy a particularly successful tour, although he played in two of the Test matches, making his Test debut on New Years Day 1904 in the second test at the

MCG The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), also known locally as "The 'G", is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne, Victoria. Founded and managed by the Melbourne Cricket Club, it is the largest stadium in the Southern Hem ...

.Test matches played by Arthur Fielder
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2016-02-19. After a poor 1905 season Fielder was the leading wicket taker for the Kent side which won the 1906 County Championship, appearing in all 22 Championship matches and taking 158 wickets for the County in the process. He was named one of Wisden's Cricketers of the Year in 1907, alongside his County colleague Kenneth Hutchings.Wilde S (2013) "1907 Five cricketers of the year" in ''Wisden Cricketers of the Year: A Celebration of Cricket's Greatest Players'', pp.58–60.
Available online
During the season he became the first man to take all 10 wickets in an innings in the

Gentlemen v Players Gentlemen v Players was a long-running series of English first-class cricket matches. Two matches were played in 1806, but the fixture was not played again until 1819. It became an annual event, usually played at least twice each season, exc ...

match at Lord's, taking 10/90 in the first innings and 14 wickets overall in the match. Fielder took six wickets or more on 13 occasions during the 1906 season and 172 in total for the county. He is one of only four men to take more than 150 wickets in a season for Kent, a feat he repeated in 1907 when he enjoyed another good season, again taking 172 wickets in total for Kent at an average of 16.Most wickets in a season for Kent
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2016-02-06. Fielder was selected to tour Australia again in 1907–08 with England. He played in the first four Tests on the tour taking 25 wickets at 25.08, England's second leading Test wicket taker on the tour.Marylebone Cricket Club in Australia 1907–08
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2016-02-19.
Marylebone Cricket Club in Australia 1907-08, CricketArchive. Retrieved 2016-02-19. He took 6/82 in a narrow defeat at Sydney in the first TestA rare old day
CricInfo, 2003-07-19. Retrieved 2016-02-19. and scored 18 runs in a crucial last wicket partnership the final innings of the second Test at Melbourne as England won by one wicket.Wiseman D (2002
Boxing Day in Melbourne (part 1)
CricInfo, 2002-12-26. Retrieved 2016-02-19. Whilst strictly a tail-end batsman, he scored an undefeated 112, his only first-class century, against

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...

at Amblecote batting at number 11 and shared a partnership of 235 for the tenth wicket with

Frank Woolley Frank Edward Woolley (27 May 1887 – 18 October 1978) was an English professional cricketer who played for Kent County Cricket Club between 1906 and 1938 and for the England cricket team. A genuine all-rounder, Woolley was a left-handed batsman ...

who scored 185. This is still the highest last-wicket partnership in the

.Highest partnership for each wicket in County Championship
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2016-02-20. The pair came together when Kent were still 40 behind Worcestershire's first innings of 360 and raised Kent's total to 555. Kent went on to win by an innings. Woolley had retired hurt earlier in the innings after being hit in the mouth by a ball from

Ted Arnold Edward George Arnold (7 November 1876 – 25 October 1942) was an English cricketer who played in ten Test Matches from 1903 to 1907, and most of his 343 first-class matches for Worcestershire between 1899 and 1913. His ''Wisden'' obituar ...

. Fielder remained a major part of the Kent team until 1914, taking over 100 wickets in 1909, 1911 and 1913.First-class bowling in each year by Arthur Fielder
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2016-02-20. He was part of the Kent Championship winning sides of

1909 Events January–February * January 4 – Explorer Aeneas Mackintosh of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition escaped death by fleeing across ice floes. * January 7 – Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama. * Jan ...

1910 Events January * January 13 – The first public radio broadcast takes place; live performances of the operas '' Cavalleria rusticana'' and ''Pagliacci'' are sent out over the airwaves, from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York C ...

and 1913.

ended Fielder's first-class career although he did play two non-first-class matches for the MCC after the war.Miscellaneous matches played by Arthur Fielder
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2016-02-20.

Style of play

Fielder was described by Wisden in 1907 as being "quite modern in his methods, keeping the ball for the most part well outside the off-stump". He generally bowled out-swing deliveries, swerving the ball away from the batsman and relying on catches by slip fielders.Sengupta A (2014
Arthur Fielder — and the Bowlers, and Stumpers
''Cricket Country'', 2014-08-30. Retrieved 2016-02-20. He also used deliveries which made the ball break back into the batsman and is described, again by Wisden in 1907, as bowling at a "fine pace". He bowled consistently and could be relied upon to bowl long spells. He had an unusual run-up. A contemporary account described it: "Fielder ... has three distinct paces when running to the wicket, and at each change he bobs his head as if to avoid something hurled at him."Cricket
''The Free Lance'', vol.8, no.401, 1908-03-07, p.20. Retrieved 2019-02-19.

Later life

Fielder was too old to serve in the military during

. He joined the Kent police as a special constable during the war.Lewis P (2014) ''For Kent and Country'', pp.35–36. Brighton: Reveille Press. He died at St Thomas' Hospital in London in 1949 aged 72.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fielder, Arthur 1877 births 1949 deaths England Test cricketers Kent cricketers Wisden Cricketers of the Year English cricketers People from Tonbridge Players cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers North v South cricketers Cricketers who have taken ten wickets in an innings Players of the South cricketers