Neville John Acland Foster (1890–1978) 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.Cricinfo profile
/ref> 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 ...

,CricketArchive profile
/ref> he was the youngest of seven brothers to play

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 ...

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 ...

, though his

county cricket Inter-county cricket matches are known to have been played since the early 18th century, involving teams that are representative of the historic counties of England and Wales. Since the late 19th century, there have been two county championship ...

was restricted to two seasons as he spent most of his life in

Malaya Malaya refers to a number of historical and current political entities related to what is currently Peninsular Malaysia in Southeast Asia: Political entities * British Malaya (1826–1957), a loose collection of the British colony of the Straits ...

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''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 ...

1979
Obituaries in 1978
/ref>

Biography

Born on 28 September 1890 in

Malvern Malvern or Malverne may refer to: Places Australia * Malvern, South Australia, a suburb of Adelaide * Malvern, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne * City of Malvern, a former local government area near Melbourne * Electoral district of Malvern, an e ...

, Foster played twice for the

Federated Malay States )Under God's Protection , capital = Kuala Lumpur1 , religion = Islam , legislature = Federal Legislative Council , type_house1 = State level , common_languages = , title_leader = Monarch , leader1 ...

against the

Straits Settlements The Straits Settlements were a group of British territories located in Southeast Asia. Headquartered in Singapore for more than a century, it was originally established in 1826 as part of the territories controlled by the British East India Comp ...

in 1911 and 1912,Other matches played by Neville Foster
at CricketArchive he made his first-class debut for his native Worcestershire in May 1914 when he played in a

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 ...

match against

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

. He played in two further matches that season.First-class matches played by Neville Foster
at CricketArchive Back in Malaya, he played a third match for the Federated Malay States against the Straits Settlements in

Kuala Lumpur , anthem = '' Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , su ...

in 1922, before returning to England for his final season of first-class cricket. He played five County Championship matches for Worcestershire that season, his availability restricted by a side injury. The remainder of his recorded cricket career took place in Malaya, eventually captaining the Federated Malay States for whom he played six more times, five times against the Straits Settlements and once against

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. He also played three times for the combined

Malaya cricket team The Malaya cricket team was a team that represented the combined territories of the Federated Malay States and the Straits Settlements in various international cricket matches between 1906 and 1961. History Early days Singapore cricket club is ...

, playing against Hong Kong in 1926, and against Hong Kong and

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

in 1927. He died on 8 January 1978 in Malvern, the last survivor of his cricket playing brothers. His wife's name was Ratana Yuok.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Foster, Neville 1890 births 1978 deaths English cricketers Federated Malay States cricketers People educated at Malvern College Malayan cricketers People from Malvern, Worcestershire Worcestershire cricketers Neville Cricketers from Worcestershire