Robert James Joseph Woolley (born 6 August 1990) is an English former first-class cricketer. In 2020, Woolley captained Chipstead to the Surrey Championship Group 5 Certificate against an angry Leatherhead attack in 2020. He captained Chipstead for five years, winning promotion in his 3rd season in charge. He played for Hyde Cricket Club throughout his junior and early senior career and won two Cheshire Cups. He was part of the famous run to the T20 finals day on Sky Sports also, scoring the winning runs against Kendal to win the game to win the quarter-final. He played a key role throughout the 2011 season taking two eight-wicket hauls against Neston and hitting 140 against East Brierley most notably. Woolley was born at

Tameside Tameside is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England, named after the River Tame, Greater Manchester, River Tame, which flows through it, and includes the towns of Ashton-under-Lyne, Audenshaw, Denton, Greater Manchester, Denton, D ...

hospital and was educated at

St Bede's College, Manchester St Bede's College is an Independent Roman Catholic co-educational day school for pupils between 3 and 18 years located on Alexandra Road South in Whalley Range, Manchester, England. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Confe ...

, before going down to

Anglia Ruskin University Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) is a public research university in the region of East Anglia, United Kingdom. Its origins date back to the Cambridge School of Art (CSA), founded by William John Beamont, a Fellow of Trinity College at the Unive ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

. In 2009, Woolley 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

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, making once appearance each 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 ...

and the

MCCA Knockout Trophy The National Counties Cricket Association Knockout Cup was started in 1983 as a knockout one-day competition for the National Counties in English cricket. At first it was known as the ''English Industrial Estates Cup'', before being called the ...

. While studying at Anglia Ruskin, Woolley made his debut in

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 UCCE Cambridge University Cricket Club, established in 1820, is the representative cricket club for students of the University of Cambridge. The club was recognised as holding first-class status until 2020. The university played List A cricket in 1 ...

against

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

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 2009. He played first-class cricket for Cambridge MCCU until 2012, making eleven appearances. Playing as an

all-rounder An all-rounder is a cricketer who regularly performs well at both batting and bowling. Although all bowlers must bat and quite a handful of batsmen do bowl occasionally, most players are skilled in only one of the two disciplines and are cons ...

, Woolley scored a total of 284 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 31.55 across his eleven matches, with a high score of 89

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 ...

. He took 22 wickets with his right-arm

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 ...

, at a

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 ...

of 53.27, with best figures of 3 for 54. In 2012, Woolley was called up to the

Unicorns The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since Classical antiquity, antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn (anatomy), horn projecting from its forehead. In European literature and art, the unico ...

squad for the

2012 Clydesdale Bank 40 The 2012 Clydesdale Bank 40 tournament was the third season of the ECB 40 limited overs cricket competition for the English and Welsh first-class counties. In addition to the 18 counties, Scotland and the Netherlands took part, as well as the Uni ...

, making his List A one-day debut in the tournament against

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire to the north, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the south a ...

at Chesterfield. He made six further List A appearance for the Unicorns, the last of which came in the

2013 Yorkshire Bank 40 The 2013 Yorkshire Bank 40 tournament was the fourth and final season of the ECB 40 limited overs cricket competition for the English and Welsh first-class counties, plus Scotland, the Netherlands, and the Unicorns, a team of players who did not ...

. He scored 61 runs across his seven one-day matches, With his fast-medium pace and controlled swing, his best day was against Yorkshire at Headingley. He took the 2 early wickets of ex-Australian opener Phil Jaques and Yorkshire captain Andrew Gale during a fine spell of 2-25 off 8 overs. He also scored 28 not out in the first innings. He played minor counties cricket for

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfor ...

in 2015 and 2016, making one appearance in the Minor Counties Championship and five appearances in the MCCA Knockout Trophy.

Notes and references

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Woolley, Rob 1990 births Living people Sportspeople from Tameside (district) People educated at St Bede's College, Manchester Alumni of Anglia Ruskin University English cricketers Cheshire cricketers Cambridge MCCU cricketers Unicorns cricketers Cambridgeshire cricketers Cricketers from Greater Manchester