Charles Gordon Rowe (30 June 1915 – 9 June 1995) 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 one Test match in 1946 against Australia. He also represented

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

hockey Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers o ...

Life and career

Early life and war service

Rowe was born at

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in Scotland in 1915 and died at

Palmerston North Palmerston North (; mi, Te Papa-i-Oea, known colloquially as Palmy) is a city in the North Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Manawatū-Whanganui region. Located in the eastern Manawatu Plains, the city is near the north bank of the ...

in New Zealand in 1995 aged 79.Gordon Rowe

Cricinfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a ...

. Retrieved 2021-06-26.Rowe, Charles Gordon
Obituaries in 1995, ''

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''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 ...

'', 1996. Retrieved 2021-06-21. He served overseas in the New Zealand Army in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. At the time he was a policeman in

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 ...

Cricket

A middle-order batsman, Rowe made his

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 one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officia ...

debut in 1944–45, and had played six first-class matches 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 ...

before being selected for the Test team, having scored 324 runs at an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

of 27.00 runs per innings, with his top score of 72 made against

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

. He had also scored 102 and 79 in a non-first-class match for Wellington against Canterbury in 1944–45. In his Test match, also played in Wellington, he was dismissed for a

pair Pair or PAIR or Pairing may refer to: Government and politics * Pair (parliamentary convention), matching of members unable to attend, so as not to change the voting margin * ''Pair'', a member of the Prussian House of Lords * ''Pair'', the Frenc ...

, bowled by Bill O'Reilly each time. He is one of the ten players to be dismissed for a pair in their only Test. The only other New Zealander in that list is

Len Butterfield Leonard Arthur Butterfield (29 August 1913 – 5 July 1999) was a New Zealand cricketer who played in one Test in 1946. He later served as New Zealand's chief harness racing stipendiary steward. Cricket career Butterfield made his first-class ...

, who played in the same match. He played no further first-class matches for six seasons, but returned to captain

Central Districts The Central Stags, formerly known as Central Districts, are a first-class cricket team based in central New Zealand. They are the men's representative side of the Central Districts Cricket Association. They compete in the Plunket Shield firs ...

in 1952–53. He had little success with the bat, but in his last match he led the team to an innings victory against

, which ensured Central Districts second place in the

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 Octob ...

. Rowe stood as an

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in three matches in the

1982 Women's Cricket World Cup The 1982 Women's Cricket World Cup, known as the 1982 Hansells Vita Fresh World Cup for sponsorship purposes, was an international cricket tournament played in New Zealand from 10 January to 7 February 1982. Hosted by New Zealand for the first ...

held in New Zealand.Gordon Rowe
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2021-06-26.

Hockey

Rowe was also a

player. He represented

against

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

in 1938. He scored four goals when Wairarapa defeated the touring Australian team 6–3 at

Masterton Masterton ( mi, Whakaoriori), a large town in the Greater Wellington Region of New Zealand, operates as the seat of the Masterton District (a territorial authority or local-government district). It is the largest town in the Wairarapa, a r ...

in August 1948. He retired from representative hockey in 1958.

References

External links