Maurice Alfred Crouch (9 August 1917 – 19 March 2001) 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, he was born at

Wisbech Wisbech ( ) is a market town, inland Port of Wisbech, port and civil parish in the Fenland District, Fenland district in Cambridgeshire, England. In 2011 it had a population of 31,573. The town lies in the far north-east of Cambridgeshire, bord ...

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...

. Crouch played most of his cricket for

in the

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship (previously the Minor Counties Cricket Championship) is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national cou ...

, making his debut against

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council wa ...

in 1936. From 1936 to 1963, he represented the county in 118 Minor Counties matches. His final game for the county came in his only List-A appearance, which came in the

1964 Gillette Cup The 1964 Gillette Cup was the second Gillette Cup, an English limited overs county cricket tournament. It was held between 25 April and 5 September 1964, and was won by the defending champions Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), i ...

against

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

. In the match, he scored 28 runs before being dismissed by

Robin Hobbs Robin Nicholas Stuart Hobbs (born 8 May 1942) is a former English cricketer, who played in seven Tests for England from 1967 to 1971. He played first-class cricket for both Essex and Glamorgan. Cricket writer, Colin Bateman, remarked, "Hobb ...

. Crouch also played

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 ...

, representing 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 ...

against a combined Minor Counties cricket team in 1950. The following year, he represented the Minor Counties in a first-class match 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 ...

, in what was his only first-class appearance for a combined Minor Counties side. His final two first-class appearances came in 1952 for the Marylebone Cricket Club 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 the ...

and

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 his 4 first-class matches, he scored 205 runs at a batting average of 29.28, with a single

half century One half ( : halves) is the irreducible fraction resulting from dividing one by two or the fraction resulting from dividing any number by its double. Multiplication by one half is equivalent to division by two, or "halving"; conversely, ...

high score of 81. Crouch died in

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

on 19 March 2001.

Family

His son-in-law

David Fairey David Harold Richardson Fairey (born 17 August 1940) is a former English cricketer. Fairey was a right-handed batsman who bowled left-arm medium-pace. Born in Linton, Cambridgeshire, he was also a field hockey player. Fairey made his debut ...

also represented Cambridgeshire in cricket.

References

External links

Maurice Crouch
at

Cricinfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...

Maurice Crouch
at CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:Crouch, Maurice 1917 births 2001 deaths People from Wisbech English cricketers Cambridgeshire cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Minor Counties cricketers Cricketers from Cambridgeshire