John Vesey Claude Griffiths (19 January 1931 – 18 February 1982) played first-class

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 ...

for

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 ...

from 1952 to 1957. Griffiths was born in

Lee, London Lee, also known as Lee Green, is an area of South East London, England, straddling the border of the London Borough of Lewisham and the Royal Borough of Greenwich. It is located northwest of Eltham and southeast of Lewisham. It is within the h ...

. A lower-order left-handed batsman and a slow left-arm spin bowler, he played in 34 matches without ever establishing himself as a regular in the Gloucestershire first team. His most productive season was 1953, when he played in 13 matches and made his highest score, 32 against Combined Services. But in those 13 matches he took only 16 wickets. Competing for a place in a Gloucestershire side that already boasted a Test slow left-armer in Sam Cook and future Test

offbreak 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 ...

bowlers in John Mortimore and David Allen, plus the irrepressible Bryan Wells, Griffiths' opportunities got fewer rather than greater across the mid 1950s. His best bowling figures were four-wicket hauls in matches against university sides in 1955 and 1956, with four for 74 the best. Griffiths played Minor Counties cricket for Gloucestershire as early as 1948 and played on through the 1958 season, though his last first-class appearance was in 1957. In the early 1960s, he made occasional appearances for

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

's second eleven, and appeared in one further match for Gloucestershire's second eleven too. In the late 1970s, he was an umpire standing in Minor Counties and

Second Eleven Championship The Second XI Championship is a season-long cricket competition in England that is competed for by the reserve teams of those county cricket clubs that have first-class status. The competition started in 1959 and has been contested annually ever ...

matches and in 1979, he stood for one season as an umpire in first-class and

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 ...

matches, though he was not reappointed in 1980. He died at

Wedmore Wedmore is a large village and civil parish in the county of Somerset, England. It is situated on raised ground, in the Somerset Levels between the River Axe and River Brue, often called the Isle of Wedmore. It forms part of Sedgemoor district. ...

, aged 51.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Griffiths, John 1931 births 1982 deaths English cricketers Gloucestershire cricketers English cricket umpires