Alfred Ernest Dipper (9 November 1885 – 7 November 1945) 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 for Gloucestershire County Cricket Club from 1908 to 1932, and in one

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) ...

for

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in 1921. He was born at Apperley,

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

, and died at Lambeth, London. Dipper was a right-handed

opening batsman In cricket, the batting order is the sequence in which batters play through their team's innings, there always being two batters taking part at any one time. All eleven players in a team are required to bat if the innings is completed (i.e., if ...

who played in 481

first-class matches 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 officiall ...

. He scored 28,075 career runs at an average of 35.27 runs per completed innings with a highest score of 252 * as one of 53

centuries A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. A centennial or ...

. Dipper was an occasional right arm medium pace bowler and took 161 first-class

wicket In cricket, the term wicket has several meanings: * It is one of the two sets of three stumps and two bails at either end of the pitch. The fielding team's players can hit the wicket with the ball in a number of ways to get a batsman out. ...

s with a best return of 7/46. He took five wickets in an innings five times and

ten wickets in a match In cricket, a ten-wicket haul occurs when a bowler takes ten wickets in either a single innings or across both innings of a two-innings match. The phrase ten wickets in a match is also used. Taking ten wickets in a match at Lord's earns the bo ...

once. His best match return was 14/104. He was generally perceived to be a weak fielder due to lack of mobility, but he held 210 career catches.

Career

Alf Dipper, then aged 22, had been playing for his local club in

Tewkesbury Tewkesbury ( ) is a medieval market town and civil parish in the north of Gloucestershire, England. The town has significant history in the Wars of the Roses and grew since the building of Tewkesbury Abbey. It stands at the confluence of the Ri ...

and made his first-class debut on 15 June 1908 after he was called into the Gloucestershire team at short notice because they were a man short going to the Angel Ground in

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 ...

for a

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 ...

match against

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 ...

. He batted at number nine and top scored with 30 * in the first innings but Gloucestershire collapsed twice to lose by an innings and 126 runs. Dipper was out for 8 in the second innings. He bowled 12 overs in the Kent innings and took 1/12 with the

Ted Dillon Edward Wentworth Dillon (15 February 1881 – 20 April 1941) was an English amateur sportsman in the early years of the 20th century. He played over 200 first-class cricket matches, mainly for Kent County Cricket Club between 1900 and 1913. Dil ...

, who was caught behind by

Jack Board John Henry Board (23 February 1867 – 15 April 1924) was an English cricketer who played in six Tests from 1899 to 1906. Jack Board was a wicketkeeper and a right-handed batsman who started out as a tail-ender but developed into a useful play ...

for 25. Dipper stayed with Gloucestershire but did not play regularly until he became their opening batsman in 1911. He scored 1,101 runs in 1911 with two centuries to establish his position in the team. Dipper was essentially a defensive batsman. He exceeded 1,000 runs in a season 15 times and reached 2,000 in five of them. He played in just one

for England, against Australia at Lord's in 1921, a year when many new players were tried against the all-conquering team led by

Warwick Armstrong Warwick Windridge Armstrong (22 May 1879 – 13 July 1947) was an Australian cricketer who played 50 Test matches between 1902 and 1921. An all-rounder, he captained Australia in ten Test matches between 1920 and 1921, and was undefeated, winn ...

. Dipper scored 40 and 11, but was dropped. His lack of mobility as a fielder probably cost him further consideration by the Test selectors.

Later years

Having retired as a player, Dipper became a first-class

umpire An umpire is an official in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The term derives from the Old French nonper, ''non'', "not" and ''per'', ...

. He stood in 93 first-class matches from 1933 to 1936. In other sports, he was a high standard bowls player and good at

billiards Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . There are three major subdivisions ...

. Dipper died at St Thomas' Hospital in Lambeth on 7 November 1945, two days before his 60th birthday. He was buried at Manor Park Cemetery in east London.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dipper, Alf 1885 births 1945 deaths England Test cricketers English cricket umpires English cricketers of 1919 to 1945 English cricketers Gloucestershire cricketers People from the Borough of Tewkesbury Players cricketers Players of the South cricketers Sportspeople from Gloucestershire