Eric William Dempster (25 January 1925 – 15 August 2011) was a New Zealand

cricket 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 ...

er who played in five

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

in 1953 and 1954, before becoming an international umpire.

Cricket career

A left-arm spinner and useful lower-order batsman, Dempster 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

Wellington Wellington 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 third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...

from 1947–48 to 1960–61. His best first-class bowling figures of 5 wickets for 46 runs came in the match against

Orange Free State The Orange Free State ( ; ) was an independent Boer-ruled sovereign republic under British suzerainty in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeated and surrendered to the British Em ...

at Bloemfontein in 1953–54. He scored his only

century A century is a period of 100 years or 10 decades. 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. ...

, 105, for Wellington against

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...

at Wellington in the 1956–57

Plunket Shield New Zealand has had a domestic first-class cricket championship since the 1906–07 season. Since the 2009–10 season it has been known by its original name of the Plunket Shield. History The Plunket Shield competition was instigated in Octo ...

. He made his Test debut in the Second Test against South Africa in Auckland in 1952–53, and toured South Africa the following season, playing in four of the five Tests. His best performance in Tests was in the Fourth Test in 1953–54 in Johannesburg: he made 21 not out batting at number eight in the first innings then, when New Zealand followed on, he opened and top-scored with 47 in the second innings.

After cricket

Dempster became an

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 , , and , : (as evidenced in cricke ...

and officiated in several of

Otago Otago (, ; ) is a regions of New Zealand, region of New Zealand located in the southern half of the South Island and administered by the Otago Regional Council. It has an area of approximately , making it the country's second largest local go ...

's home first-class and one-day matches from 1971–72 to 1979–80. He also umpired three

One Day International One Day International (ODI) is a format of cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of fifty overs, with the game lasting up to 7 hours. The World Cup, generally held every four yea ...

matches in

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; ) is the second-most populous city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from ("fort of Edin"), the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of S ...

and

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

between 1973–74 and 1975–76. Dempster worked in Dunedin as the manager of the artificial limb service which was attached to Dunedin Hospital.''

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" (or variations thereof) has been applied to ''Wi ...

'' 2012, p. 190. In the 1986 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was appointed a

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

, for services to the disabled and cricket. He died in Dunedin on 15 August 2011.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dempster, Eric 1925 births 2011 deaths Cricketers from Wellington City New Zealand Test cricketers New Zealand cricketers Wellington cricketers New Zealand Members of the Order of the British Empire New Zealand One Day International cricket umpires Burials at Green Park Cemetery