Arthur Stewart Mills (20 December 1923 – 28 December 2001), also known as Dick Mills, 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 striki ...

er. He played one first-class match for

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 ...

in the 1947–48 season. Mills was born at

Invercargill Invercargill ( , mi, Waihōpai is the southernmost and westernmost city in New Zealand, and one of the southernmost cities in the world. It is the commercial centre of the Southland region. The city lies in the heart of the wide expanse of t ...

in Southland in 1923 and grew up in

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

. He worked as a clerk and was a member of the Air Training Corps. He served in

World War II 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 vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in the New Zealand Airforce, qualifying as a pilot in July 1943 before serving in

No. 22 Squadron RNZAF No. 22 Squadron RNZAF was a squadron of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Formed in August 1942, during World War II, at RNZAF Station Onerahi equipped with the Hawker Hind, co-ordinating with New Zealand Army units providing training for air li ...

where he saw active service in the Pacific. He was promoted to pilot officer in 1944, and later became a professional pilot with the

New Zealand National Airways Corporation New Zealand National Airways Corporation, popularly known as NAC, was the national domestic airline of New Zealand from 1947 until 1978 when it amalgamated with New Zealand's international airline, Air New Zealand. The airline was headquartere ...

.McCarron A (2010) ''New Zealand Cricketers 1863/64–2010'', p. 92. Cardiff: The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. A

wicket-keeper The wicket-keeper in the sport of cricket is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket or stumps being watchful of the batsman and ready to take a catch, stump the batsman out and run out a batsman when occasion arises. Th ...

, Mills played club cricket for Carisbrook, Old Boys' and Albion Cricket Clubs in Dunedin and was described as a "capable batsman of the forcing type" who was a "distinctly useful" keeper. His only first-class match was a March 1948 fixture for Otago against the touring Fiji side at Carisbrook in

. He scored 16 runs in the match.Dick Mills
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2 June 2023. In December 1949 he played a single Hawke Cup match for Manawatu against Hutt Valley, scoring a half-century in his side's second innings. As well as cricket, Mills captained the Otago basketball side.Men's basketball, '' Evening Star'', issue 25809, 4 June 1946, p. 2.
Available online
at Papers Past. Retrieved 2 June 2023.) Mills died at

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

in 2001. He was 78. An obituary was published in the 2005 ''New Zealand Cricket Almanack''.

References

External links

* 1923 births 2001 deaths New Zealand cricketers Otago cricketers Cricketers from Invercargill {{NewZealand-cricket-bio-1920s-stub