John Ratledge (born 8 August 1974) is an English barrister and former first-class

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. Born at Preston, Ratledge was educated at

Bolton School Bolton School is a private day school in Bolton, Greater Manchester. It comprises a co-educational nursery (ages 0–4), co-educational infant school (ages 3–7), single sex junior schools (ages 7–11) and single sex senior schools including ...

, before going up to

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College, formally the College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge, is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch L ...

to study law. While studying at Cambridge he 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

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, making his debut against

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated ''Notts.'') is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. The county is bordered by South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. Th ...

Fenner's Fenner's is Cambridge University Cricket Club's ground. History Cambridge University Cricket Club had previously played at two grounds in Cambridge, the University Ground and Parker's Piece. In 1846, Francis Fenner leased a former cherry orc ...

in 1994. He played first-class cricket for Cambridge from 1994–1997, making a total of 27 appearances at first-class level. Ratledge ended his first-class career having scored a total of 942 runs at an

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

of 20.04, with a highest score of 100

not out In cricket, a batsman is not out if they come out to bat in an innings and have not been dismissed by the end of an innings. The batsman is also ''not out'' while their innings is still in progress. Occurrence At least one batter is not out at ...

. This score was his only first-class century and came against

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

in 1997, in what was his final first-class match. He also bowled twenty overs with his

medium pace bowling Fast bowling (also referred to as pace bowling) is a type of bowling (cricket), bowling in cricket, in which the ball is Delivery (cricket), delivered at high speed. The fastest bowlers bowl the ball at over . Practitioners of fast bowling are ...

across his career, taking a single wicket and conceding 108 runs. He gained a

blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical spe ...

in cricket. After graduating from St John's, Ratledge was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

in 1999. He played

minor counties cricket 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 ...

for

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is an area of North West England which was historically a county. The county was bordered by Northumberland to the north-east, County Durham to the east, Westmorland to the south-east, Lancashire to the south, and the Scottish ...

in 2006, making four appearances in the

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship or National County Championship is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national counties (previously ca ...

. After spending twenty years practicing law at the St John’s Buildings in Manchester, Ratledge moved to East Anglia to practice in Norwich.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ratledge, John 1974 births Living people Cricketers from Preston, Lancashire People educated at Bolton School Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge English cricketers Cambridge University cricketers Cumberland cricketers English barristers Lawyers from Preston, Lancashire