John Howard Comber (8 January 1861 – 1903) 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. Comber's

batting Batting may refer to: *Batting (baseball), the act of attempting to hit a ball thrown by the pitcher with a baseball bat, in order to score runs *Batting (cricket), the act of defending one's wicket with the cricket bat while attempting to score ru ...

and

bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), though ...

style is unknown. He was born at

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

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 ...

and died at Lowell,

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

. Comber made his first-class debut for

against

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

at Bat and Ball Ground, Gravesend in 1885. He made two further first-class appearances for Sussex that season, against

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

at the

County Ground, Southampton The County Ground in Southampton, England was a cricket and football ground. It was the home of Hampshire County Cricket Club from the 1885 English cricket season until the 2000 English cricket season. The ground also served as the home ground ...

and

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 ...

at the

College Ground, Cheltenham The College Ground is a cricket ground in the grounds of Cheltenham College in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. Gloucestershire County Cricket Club have played more than 300 first-class and more than 70 List A matches there. It also hosted ...

. He struggled in his three first-class matches, scoring just 28 runs 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 5.60, with a high score of 8. At some point later in his life he moved to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

where in 1892 he is recorded as an "overseer" in his marriage to Lucy Johnson in Lowell, Massachusetts; they had a daughter, also Lucy, in 1895. He featured in a match for

against Lord Hawke's XI in 1894. He died in 1903, but the precise date of death is not known.

References

External links

John Comber
at

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John Comber
at CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:Comber, John 1861 births 1903 deaths 19th-century male tennis players Cricketers from Brighton English cricketers Sussex cricketers English emigrants to the United States