Jack van Geloven (4 January 1934 – 21 August 2003) was an English

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 ...

er, who played three matches for

Yorkshire County Cricket Club Yorkshire County Cricket Club is one of 18 first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Yorkshire. Yorkshire are the most successful team in English cricketing hi ...

in 1955, and then joined

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 ...

on special registration for the 1956 season. He was a regular in the Leicestershire side for ten seasons and won his

county cap In sport, a cap is a player's appearance in a game at international level. The term dates from the practice in the United Kingdom of awarding a cap to every player in an international match of rugby football and association football. In the ea ...

in 1959. He was born in

Guiseley Guiseley ( ) is a town in metropolitan borough of the City of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is situated south of Otley and Menston and is now a north-western suburb of Leeds. It sits in t ...

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

where his name was registered as Jack Geloven.

Career

Van Geloven was the son of a Dutch professional footballer, and played football in his youth before deciding to pursue a cricket career. A right-handed middle-order batsman and medium-paced bowler, he played 247 first-class matches, scoring 7,522 runs at a batting average of 19.43 runs per innings, taking 486 wickets at a bowling average of 28.62 runs per wicket and holding 137 catches. Throughout his time with Leicestershire the side was among the weakest in the

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 ...

, finishing last or second-last seven times between 1956 and 1965,''

Wisden ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

'' 2004, p. 494. and van Geloven's consistency made him more valuable than his figures might appear. He completed 1,000 runs in a season three times, with a best of 1,324 runs in 1959. But his best season overall was 1962, when he scored 1,055 runs and took exactly 100 wickets for his first, and only

double A double is a look-alike or doppelgänger; one person or being that resembles another. Double, The Double or Dubble may also refer to: Film and television * Double (filmmaking), someone who substitutes for the credited actor of a character * Th ...

. He completed the feat by taking the tenth wicket in the second innings of the last match of the season. He was the last Leicestershire player to achieve the double.

Later years

After 1962, van Geloven's batting declined, and he left first-class cricket after the 1965 season. He then played for

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land on ...

Minor Counties The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

cricket until 1973, and, from 1977 to 1983, he served as a first-class

umpire An umpire is an official in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The term derives from the Old French nonper, ''non'', "not" and ''per'', ...

."Obituaries", ''

'' 2004, p. 1561. After retiring from the umpiring list, van Geloven spent 12 years as the coach and groundsman at

Fettes College Fettes College () is a co-educational independent boarding and day school in Edinburgh, Scotland, with over two-thirds of its pupils in residence on campus. The school was originally a boarding school for boys only and became co-ed in 1983. 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 ...

. He died in Edinburgh in August 2003, aged 69.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Van Geloven, Jack 1934 births 2003 deaths English cricketers Yorkshire cricketers Leicestershire cricketers Northumberland cricketers People from Guiseley Cricketers from Yorkshire