Matthew James Rawnsley (born 8 June 1976) is a former 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 str ...

er who played county cricket at first-class and List A level 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 H ...

. He later played

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, as well as making two List A appearances, for

Herefordshire Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthsh ...

. Since retiring from playing professional cricket, he has had a successful career in business and has most recently returned to professional sport within administration. In 2018, he returned to Worcestershire as chief executive., but resigned in late 2019. He is now CEO at Edgbaston Priory Club in Birmingham which hosts international racquets tournaments for Tennis and Squash, including 'The Classic', the Ladies grass tournament that precedes the Wimbledon Championships. During his playing career, Rawnsley spent his Worcestershire career on the fringes of the first team, only rarely getting a lengthy run in the side. Comfortably his most significant season was 2001, when he played 15 first-class and 21 List A games. In that season, he took 27 first-class wickets – albeit at an expensive

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 44.85 – and 21 List A wickets at 34.19; in both cases, these were the highest season's aggregates of his career. However, Rawnsley's best individual bowling performances came in other years. His first-class career best of 6–44 was achieved in the second innings against

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

at The University Parks in 1998; he also claimed 5–72 in the first innings to pick up his only ten-wicket match haul. His best one-day performance of 5–26 came in a

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...

game 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 ...

Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, southeast of central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Rocks. T ...

. In general, Rawnsley was not a particularly accomplished batsman in first-class cricket, never reaching the milestone of a half-century, although he was an outstanding fielder. Rawnsley did score a century for Worcestershire's Second XI in 1997. and many more in the Birmingham League for West Bromwich Dartmouth. However, he did contribute with the bat on one of his two List A appearances for Herefordshire: playing against Oxfordshire in the

C&G Trophy The Friends Provident Trophy was a one-day cricket competition in the United Kingdom. It was one of the four tournaments in which the eighteen first-class counties competed each season. They were joined by teams from Scotland and Ireland. La ...

Bodicote Bodicote is a village and civil parish about south of the centre of Banbury in Oxfordshire. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 2,126. History Bodicote was made a separate civil and Church of England parish in 1855. Until the ...

. In an easy win for Herefordshire, Rawnsley scored 61 as well as taking 3–8. He is currently playing for Ombersley Cricket Club in the Birmingham League.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rawnsley, Matthew 1976 births Living people English cricketers Worcestershire cricketers Herefordshire cricketers Place of birth missing (living people)