George Ferguson Goddard

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

(born 19 May 1938) is a former Scottish

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. Goddard was a right-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, the ...

who bowled right-arm

off break Off spin is a type of finger spin bowling in cricket. A bowler who uses this technique is called an off spinner. Off spinners are right-handed spin bowlers who use their fingers to spin the ball. Their normal delivery is an off break, which spi ...

. He was born in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

Midlothian Midlothian (; gd, Meadhan Lodainn) is a historic county, registration county, lieutenancy area and one of 32 council areas of Scotland used for local government. Midlothian lies in the east-central Lowlands, bordering the City of Edinburgh, ...

and educated at

George Heriot's School George Heriot's School is a Scottish independent primary and secondary day school on Lauriston Place in the Old Town of Edinburgh, Scotland. In the early 21st century, it has more than 1600 pupils, 155 teaching staff, and 80 non-teaching staff ...

. Goddard made his first-class debut for

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

against

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

in 1960. He played 21 further first-class matches for Scotland, the last of which came against Ireland in 1980. He had entered the Scottish team as a batsman, but as his career progressed he became predominantly a bowler. In 22 first-class matches, he took 41 wickets 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 26.86 and best figures of 8/34. These figures came against Ireland in 1972. These figures remain to this day the best innings bowling figures for Scotland in first-class cricket. As a lower-order batsman, Goddard scored 371 runs at a

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

of 13.25, with a high score of 39. He captained Scotland from 1974, having replaced

James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the honor ...

, until 1980 when he was replaced by

Richard Swan Richard Gordon Swan (; born 1933) is an American mathematician who is known for the Serre–Swan theorem relating the geometric notion of vector bundles to the algebraic concept of projective modules, and for the Swan representation, an ''l''-a ...

. He made his

List A List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numbe ...

debut for Scotland against

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...

in the 1980 Benson & Hedges Cup, a match which marked Scotland's debut in that format. He made 14 further List A matches for Scotland, the last of which came against

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

in the

1983 NatWest Trophy The 1983 NatWest Trophy was an English limited overs county cricket tournament which was held between 29 June and 3 September 1983. The third NatWest Trophy competition, it was won by Somerset who defeated Kent by 24 runs in the final at Lord' ...

. In his 15 List A matches, he took 9 wickets at an average of 45.44, with best figures of 2/25. With the bat, he scored 58 runs at an average of 6.44, with a high score of 14. Outside of cricket, he worked as an accountant. In the

1982 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 1982 were appointments by most of the Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries, and honorary ones to citizens of other countries ...

Goddard was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to Scottish cricket. In 2011 he was one of the twelve initial inductees into the Scottish Cricket Hall of Fame.Scottish cricket launches Hall of Fame
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References

External links

ESPNcricinfo 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 ...

George Goddard
at CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:Goddard, George 1938 births Living people Cricketers from Edinburgh People educated at George Heriot's School Scottish cricketers Scottish cricket captains Members of the Order of the British Empire