John Erskine Scott Walford (14 August 1899 – 22 August 1961) was an English

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. 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 ...

and right-arm

fast-medium Fast bowling (also referred to as pace bowling) is one of two main approaches to bowling in the sport of cricket, the other being spin bowling. Practitioners of pace bowling are usually known as ''fast'' bowlers, ''quicks'', or ''pacemen''. T ...

bowler, he played 11 first-class matches between 1923 and 1932,CricketArchive profile
/ref> six for

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...

and five for the

British Army cricket team The Army cricket team is a cricket side representing the British Army. The Army team played 51 first-class matches between 1912 and 1939, although a combined Army and Navy side had played two games against a combined Oxford and Cambridge team ...

. He also represented the

Egypt national cricket team The Egypt national cricket team was the team that represented the country of Egypt in international cricket matches. They were active from 1909 until World War II.Encyclopedia of World Cricket by Roy Morgan, Sportsbooks Publishing History Early ...

.Other matches played by John Walford
at CricketArchive

Biography

Born in Hanbury Mount,

, Walford made his debut for Worcestershire against

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

in July 1923,First-class matches played by John Walford
at CricketArchive although he did not get to bowl and made only 11 and 5 with the bat. Indeed, he played largely as a batsman that season, bowling only half a dozen overs in five matches and gaining no reward.
at CricketArchive He did however manage what was to remain his highest score when he hit 31 against

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

in his second match. There then followed six years in which Walford played no first-class cricket, before he returned to play for the Army against the

RAF The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

The Oval The Oval, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Kia Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, located in the borough of Lambeth, in south London. The Oval has been the home ground of Surrey County Cricket Club since ...

in July 1930. In the first innings of this match he claimed his first wicket, that of Ronald Sugden, and went on to take five more to finish with what would remain his career best of 6–27. (He also took two wickets in the second innings.) In the next two years, he played four more times for the Army, and consistently took wickets, a notable performance being his 6–31 against the

Marylebone Cricket Club Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influence ...

(MCC) in August 1931.Scorecard
of MCC v Army, 15 August 1931 at CricketArchive He also turned out one more time for Worcestershire, against

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

in 1930. His last first-class match was for the Army against the RAF in June 1932, after which he continued to play at lower levels. He played for the MCC against the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

in 1937 and 1939 and 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 1939. Earlier that year, he played twice for Egypt against HM Martineau's XI. He died at Ravenscourt Park,

Hammersmith Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

a few days after his 62nd birthday.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walford, John 1899 births 1961 deaths People from Wychavon (district) Egyptian cricketers English cricketers Worcestershire cricketers British Army cricketers Worcestershire Regiment officers Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers officers Military personnel from Worcestershire Cricketers from Worcestershire 20th-century British Army personnel