Joseph Vine (15 May 1875 – 25 April 1946) was a professional

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, who played his

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

Sussex County Cricket Club Sussex County Cricket Club is the oldest of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Sussex. Its limited overs team is called the Sussex Sharks. The c ...

and London County. Vine also played two Test matches for

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and was named as one of the five

Wisden Cricketers of the Year The ''Wisden'' Cricketers of the Year are cricketers selected for the honour by the annual publication ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', based primarily on their "influence on the previous English season". The award began in 1889 with the naming ...

in 1906. Vine's cricket career was not one of a rapid rise to fame. Although he played his first first-class match in 1896, it was not until 1900, after some tentative appearances in the three previous seasons, that he earned a regular place in the Sussex eleven. After that, however, he was indispensable. He was essentially a county cricketer, nearly all his work having been done for Sussex, but if, in addition to his batting and fielding, he had managed to retain his skill as a leg-break bowler it is quite likely that he would have played for

before he played his two Test matches in 1911/2. Already a dependable player, he made a great advance as a batsman in 1904 and during 1905 he was better than he had ever been before, scoring for Sussex in county matches alone over sixteen hundred runs. Good as his position is he would probably have been thought still more of if he had belonged to another county. A batsman would need to be great indeed to play on the same side as Ranjitsinhji and

C.B. Fry Charles Burgess Fry (25 April 1872 – 7 September 1956) was an English sportsman, teacher, writer, editor and publisher, who is best remembered for his career as a cricketer. John Arlott described him with the words: "Charles Fry could b ...

, and not be overshadowed. His success as a batsman was largely gained in a series of first-wicket partnerships with Fry, and though he may at times carry caution a little too far and keep an undue check on his hitting powers, the result is nearly always so satisfactory that it would be sheer hypercriticism to find fault with him. As an outfield Vine has not the wonderful pick-up of Denton, but in every other respect was in the highest class, and in the course of a season at the beginning of the twentieth century, perhaps no one saved a larger number of runs. In total Vine played 547 first-class matches, which included 421 consecutive appearances for Sussex. Soon after retiring from county cricket Joe Vine became coach at Brighton College, an office he held for many years. He died aged 70 in 1946.

References

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Citation for Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1906
This citation is now out of copyright and this article is based in part on this citation. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Vine, Joe 1875 births 1946 deaths People from Willingdon England Test cricketers English cricketers London County cricketers Sussex cricketers Wisden Cricketers of the Year Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers North v South cricketers Players cricketers Players of the South cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club Australian Touring Team cricketers Cricketers from East Sussex