Christopher George Arthur Collier (23 August 1886 – 25 August 1916) was an English

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 st ...

er: a right-handed batsman and right arm slow bowler who played 53 first-class matches in the years before the

First World War 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 fig ...

. 52 of these were for Worcestershire, with the one exception being the match he played for H. K. Foster's XI in 1912. In all he scored 1,021 runs at 12.92 and took ten wickets at 36.90. Collier's first-class debut came against

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...

Worcester Worcester may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England ** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament * Worcester Park, London, Englan ...

in mid-May 1910. He did little with the bat, scoring 10 and 2, and did not bowl. Indeed, he did not send down a single ball in first-class cricket that season. His first wicket, in late May 1911, was that of

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's opener Richard Twining, and he finished with five in the match. He played fairly frequently for Worcestershire over the following three years, turning out in 45 matches between 1911 and 1914. He also played one match for H. K. Foster's XI against Oxford University in 1912, in which he claimed a career-best 3/28 in the first innings. Later that same summer, Collier also made his only half-century, hitting 72 for Worcestershire against

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. He also occasionally acted as

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when not playing. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

he served a

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in the

Royal Army Ordnance Corps The Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) was a corps of the British Army. At its renaming as a Royal Corps in 1918 it was both a supply and repair corps. In the supply area it had responsibility for weapons, armoured vehicles and other military equip ...

and was killed in action in the

Battle of the Somme The Battle of the Somme (French: Bataille de la Somme), also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place bet ...

near Mametz,

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, two days after his 30th birthday.

Notes

References

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Statistical summary
from CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:Collier, Christopher 1886 births 1916 deaths British Army personnel of World War I British military personnel killed in the Battle of the Somme Sportspeople from Banff, Aberdeenshire Cricketers from Aberdeenshire English cricketers Royal Army Ordnance Corps soldiers Worcestershire cricketers Military personnel from Aberdeenshire