Francis Henry Walters (9 February 1860 – 1 June 1922) was an Australian
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 in one
Test match Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to:
* Test cricket
* Test match (indoor cricket)
* Test match (rugby union)
* Test match (rugby league)
* Test match (association football)
...
in March 1885, and 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 one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...
from 1881 to 1896.
Life and career
Beginning with
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
in 1880–81, Walters had played six first-class matches, with a top score of 32, when he was selected for his only Test, the Fifth Test against England in
1884–85. Batting in the middle order, he scored 7 and 5, and England won by an innings and thus won the series 3–2. He reached 50 for the first time, and went on to score 122, for The Rest against the Australian XI in 1888–89, and it was probably this innings that led to his selection in the Australian team to tour
England in 1890.
[''The Oxford Companion to Australian Cricket'', Oxford, Melbourne, 1996, p. 561.]
Walters was not successful in England, scoring 351 runs at an average of only 10.02.
[ He displayed his best form in the seasons after the tour, when other players were preferred for the Australian team. Opening the innings for Victoria against ]New South Wales
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
in 1890–91, he scored 106 in a team total of 181.
He moved to Sydney in 1895 after purchasing the Criterion Hotel there, and played a few matches in 1895–96 for New South Wales. All four of his first-class centuries
A century is a period of 100 years. 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.
A centennial or ...
were scored at the Sydney Cricket Ground
The Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) is a sports stadium in Sydney, Australia. It is used for Test cricket, Test, One Day International and Twenty20 cricket, as well as, Australian rules football and occasionally for rugby league, rugby union and as ...
.[ Writing after Walters' death, the Test player and journalist ]Jack Worrall
John Worrall (20 June 1861 – 17 November 1937) was an Australian rules footballer who played for the Fitzroy Football Club in the VFA, and a Test cricketer. He was also a prominent coach in both sports and a journalist.
A small, nugge ...
said, "He was class enough for any company in the land as a batsman, though he was particularly slow in the field."
Walters married Clara Louisa Barber in Melbourne in January 1884. He became a prosperous real estate investor in Sydney.Bombay
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...
[According to cricket authorities, but contemporary newspaper reports say he died after his ship left ]Colombo
Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்பு, translit=Koḻumpu, ) is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo me ...
for Sydney. while he and his wife were returning to Australia after an extended holiday in England.[
]
See also
* List of Victoria first-class cricketers
This is a list of Victoria first-class cricketers. The Victoria cricket team have played first-class cricket since 1851, when they played the Tasmania cricket team at Launceston.
Below is a chronological list of cricketers to have represented Vi ...
* List of New South Wales representative cricketers
This is a list of male cricketers who have played for New South Wales in first-class, List A and Twenty20 cricket. It is complete to the end of the 2017–18 season. The list refers to the sides named as "New South Wales" and does not include pl ...
Notes
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Walters, Frank
1860 births
1922 deaths
Australia Test cricketers
New South Wales cricketers
Victoria cricketers
Melbourne Cricket Club cricketers
Australian cricketers
Cricketers from Melbourne
People who died at sea
People from East Melbourne