James George Whitehead (June 1882 – 23 January 1940) was a South African

cricketer 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 ...

who 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 ...

for

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...

in a single match in 1902 and then for

Western Province Western Province or West Province may refer to: * Western Province, Cameroon *Western Province, Rwanda *Western Province (Kenya) *Western Province (Papua New Guinea) *Western Province (Solomon Islands) *Western Province, Sri Lanka *Western Provin ...

and

Griqualand West Griqualand West is an area of central South Africa with an area of 40,000 km2 that now forms part of the Northern Cape Province. It was inhabited by the Griqua people – a semi-nomadic, Afrikaans-speaking nation of mixed-race origin, wh ...

from 1904–05 to 1920–21. He was born at

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

and died in the southern suburb of Mowbray. He was known, in English cricket at least, as "George Whitehead". Whitehead was a protege of Walter Richards, the old Warwickshire cricketer who coached in South Africa, and returned with Richards with a view to joining the Warwickshire staff when qualified through residence. He was described as "a left-handed medium-paced bowler homakes the ball get up very quickly from the pitch" and a left-handed "promising" batsman, and had played for the Cape Town Cricket Club. In the event, as he was not qualified for

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...

games, he played only one first-class match for Warwickshire, the match against London County in 1902, scored just one run in his only innings and failed to take a wicket. Whitehead returned to South Africa and from the 1904–05 season he played fairly regularly for Western Province as an opening bowler and lower-order batsman through to 1910–11, then for a couple of seasons with Griqualand West, returning to Western Province after the First World War. His bowling was often effective, and against

Natal NATAL or Natal may refer to: Places * Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, a city in Brazil * Natal, South Africa (disambiguation), a region in South Africa ** Natalia Republic, a former country (1839–1843) ** Colony of Natal, a former British colony ( ...

in 1908 he took seven second-innings wickets for 58 runs and 10 for 83 in the match, in which he bowled unchanged throughout. In a career of only 30 first-class matches, he took five or more wickets in an innings seven times.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whitehead, James 1882 births 1940 deaths South African cricketers Warwickshire cricketers Western Province cricketers Griqualand West cricketers