Reginald John Covill (10 August 1905 – 18 March 2002) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

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 active in the 1920s and 1930s. Born at

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, Cambridgeshire, Covill was 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 ...

and right-arm fast bowler who played the majority of his cricket in

minor counties cricket 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 ...

, though he did make twelve appearances in

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 ...

Career

Covill made his debut in

for

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

against

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

in the 1926

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 ...

. He played minor counties cricket for Norfolk in both 1926 and 1927, making seventeen appearances. It was in 1927 he made his debut in

, having been selected for an

East of England cricket team An East of England cricket team (known simply as "East") was organised on an ''ad hoc'' basis at intervals between 1874 and 1948. ''CricketArchive'' lists ten East matches in total, five of them rated first-class. Four first-class matches were ag ...

against the touring

New Zealanders New Zealanders ( mi, Tāngata Aotearoa), colloquially known as Kiwis (), are people associated with New Zealand, sharing a common history, culture, and language (New Zealand English). People of various ethnicities and national origins are citiz ...

Wisbech Cricket Club Ground Harecroft Road is a cricket ground in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. The first recorded match on the ground was in 1926, when Cambridgeshire played the Leicestershire Second XI in the Minor Counties Championship. Cambridgeshire have used the ground ...

. His maiden first-class wicket came in this match when he dismissed New Zealand captain

Tom Lowry Thomas Coleman Lowry (17 February 1898 – 20 July 1976) was a New Zealand Test cricketer. He Captain (cricket), captained the New Zealand cricket team, New Zealand team in its first seven Test cricket, Test matches, in 1930 and 1931. Lowry f ...

. Covill joined

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 ...

in 1928, making his debut for the county against

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

in the Minor Counties Championship. In 1930, he made a second appearance in first-class cricket when he played for 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 ...

(MCC) against

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

. Covill played regularly for the MCC over the next few seasons, making ten appearances in first-class cricket for the club, with his appearance against the

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

in 1931 seeing him take his only first-class

five wicket haul In cricket, a five-wicket haul (also known as a "five–for" or "fifer") occurs when a bowler takes five or more wickets in a single innings. This is regarded by critics as a notable achievement, equivalent to a century from a batsman. Taking ...

with figures of 5/31. He scored 304 runs in his ten matches for the MCC,

averaging 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, ...

21.71, with a high score of 48, while with the ball he took 20 wickets 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 27.30 runs per wicket. Covill also made a single first-class appearance for a combined

Minor Counties cricket team 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 ...

against the touring

West Indians A West Indian is a native or inhabitant of the West Indies (the Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago). For more than 100 years the words ''West Indian'' specifically described natives of the West Indies, but by 1661 Europeans had begun to use it ...

in 1933. He also continued the play minor counties cricket for Cambridgeshire throughout the 1930s, making his final appearance for the county in 1939 against

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

, by which time he had made 88 appearances for Cambridgeshire. He died at

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colches ...

, Essex on 18 March 2002. His father and brother also played minor counties cricket for Cambridgeshire.

References

External links

Reginald Covill
at

ESPNcricinfo 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 ...

Reginald Covill
at CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:Covill, Reginald 1905 births 2002 deaths Cricketers from Cambridge English cricketers Norfolk cricketers East of England cricketers Cambridgeshire cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Minor Counties cricketers