Douglas Linford Freeman (8 September 1914 – 31 May 1994) was a New Zealand
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 who played in two
Tests
Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to:
* Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities
Arts and entertainment
* ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film
* ''Test'' (2014 film), ...
in 1933. He was born in Australia in the
Sydney suburb of
Randwick, and also died in Sydney.
Cricket career
Freeman attended
Nelson College
Nelson College is the oldest state secondary school in New Zealand. It is an all-boys school in Nelson, New Zealand, the City of Nelson that teaches from years 9 to 13. In addition, it runs a private preparatory school for year 7 and 8 boys. ...
from 1931 to 1933. In a match for the College team in the Nelson club competition in 1931-32 he took 18 wickets: 8 for 64 and 10 for 132.
A leg-spinner, Freeman made his first-class debut in January 1933, only two months before his Test debut, taking 4 for 85 and 5 for 102 for
Wellington
Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by m ...
against
Auckland
Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about I ...
. In his second first-class match, for Wellington against the
MCC, he took 3 for 71, his victims
Eddie Paynter
Edward Paynter (5 November 1901 – 5 February 1979) was an English cricketer: an attacking batsman and excellent fielder. His Test batting average of 59.23 is the seventh highest of all time, and second only to Herbert Sutcliffe amongst Englis ...
,
Wally Hammond
Walter Reginald Hammond (19 June 1903 – 1 July 1965) was an English first-class cricketer who played for Gloucestershire in a career that lasted from 1920 to 1951. Beginning as a professional, he later became an amateur and was appointed ca ...
and
Les Ames
Leslie Ethelbert George Ames (3 December 1905 – 27 February 1990) was a wicket-keeper and batsman for the England cricket team and Kent County Cricket Club. In his obituary, '' Wisden'' described him as the greatest wicket-keeper-batsman ...
. He also played his first two
Hawke Cup
The Hawke Cup is a non-first-class cricket competition for New Zealand's district associations. Apart from 1910–11, 1912–13 and 2000–01 the competition has always been on a challenge basis. To win the Hawke Cup, the challengers must beat ...
matches for
Nelson
Nelson may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Nelson'' (1918 film), a historical film directed by Maurice Elvey
* ''Nelson'' (1926 film), a historical film directed by Walter Summers
* ''Nelson'' (opera), an opera by Lennox Berkeley to a lib ...
in January and February 1933, taking 13 wickets for 133.
Freeman was selected to play Test cricket while still a school student, making his debut in March 1933 at the age of 18 years and 197 days. He was New Zealand's youngest Test cricketer until
Daniel Vettori
Daniel Luca Vettori (born 27 January 1979) is a New Zealand cricket coach and former cricketer who played for the New Zealand national cricket team. He was the 200th player to win their Test cricket cap for New Zealand.
Vettori was the younge ...
made his debut in 1997. Freeman took only one wicket (of
Herbert Sutcliffe
Herbert Sutcliffe (24 November 1894 – 22 January 1978) was an English professional cricketer who represented Yorkshire and England as an opening batsman. Apart from one match in 1945, his first-class career spanned the period between the tw ...
) in the two Tests of the series, in which Hammond made 227 and 336 not out. He played one match for Wellington in the 1933–34 season, taking one wicket, and that was the end of his first-class career, at the age of 19.
Later life
Freeman moved to
Fiji in 1935, where he worked for the
Colonial Sugar Refining company. He managed the
Fiji cricket team's tour of New Zealand in 1953-54 and played in some of the minor matches, but achieved little with bat or ball. He later worked for CSR in Australia.
['']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 ...
'' 1995, pp. 1384–85.
References
External links
*
BLACK CAP WHITE FERN: Doug Freeman
{{DEFAULTSORT:Freeman, Doug
1914 births
1994 deaths
New Zealand Test cricketers
New Zealand cricketers
Wellington cricketers
People educated at Nelson College
Cricketers from Sydney
Australian emigrants to New Zealand