Edward James Sheffield (20 June 1908 – 28 April 1971) was an English

cricketer Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

who played

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 of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

for

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

and

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

between 1930 and 1933. He was born at

New Eltham New Eltham is a suburban area of South East Greater London, London, England, primarily in the Royal Borough of Greenwich with some parts in the London Borough of Bexley. It is located south east of Eltham and north west of Sidcup. History New E ...

in south-east

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

and died at

Chobham Chobham is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Surrey Heath, Borough of Surrey Heath in Surrey, England. The village has a small high street area, specialising in traditional trades and motor trades. The River Bourne ...

.Carlaw D (2020) ''Kent County Cricketers A to Z. Part Two: 1919–1939'', pp. 134–135.
Available online
at the

Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians (ACS) was founded in England in 1973 for the purpose of researching and collating information about the history and statistics of cricket. Originally called the Association of Cricket Stati ...

. Retrieved 8 August 2022.) Sheffield was a

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who work (human activity), works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the partic ...

right-arm in-swing fast-medium bowler and a useful right-handed lower-order batsman who had a briefly successful cricket career before he was forced to retire through back injury. He played for Surrey's second eleven in the

Minor Counties The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

competition from 1928 and made his first-class debut in 1930. He played regularly for Surrey in 1931 until injury ended his season early and topped the county's

bowling average In cricket, a player's bowling average is the number of runs they have conceded per wicket taken. The lower the bowling average is, the better the bowler is performing. It is one of a number of statistics used to compare bowlers, commonly use ...

s with 64 wickets at 19.64 runs per wicket; the wickets included a return of seven for 123 against

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

in his first match of the season which were the best innings figures of his career. He also showed occasional batting ability, including an unbeaten innings of 64 in the game against

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

. Injury meant that Sheffield's cricket career did not develop from this promising beginning: he played a few games in 1932 but was not re-engaged by Surrey at the end of the season, and in five matches for Kent in 1933 he took only 10 wickets, and did not return for the 1934 season.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sheffield, Edward 1908 births 1971 deaths English cricketers Kent cricketers Surrey cricketers 20th-century English sportsmen