Nickname Father Name Charles Marriott National side England | Batting style Right-handed Role Cricket Player | |
Full name Charles Stowell Marriott Died October 13, 1966, Dollis Hill, London, United Kingdom | ||
Bowling style Right arm leg break | ||
Charles ("Father") Stowell Marriott (14 September 1895, Heaton Moor, Stockport, Lancashire – 13 October 1966, Dollis Hill, Middlesex) was an English cricketer, who played first-class cricket for Lancashire, Cambridge University and Kent. His birth was registered as "Charlie Stowell Marriott".
Life and career
Marriott was one of the best leg break and googly bowlers of the 1920s and 1930s. Born in Lancashire, he went to school at St Columba's in Ireland, coming back to Lancashire to play in his first first-class match in 1919. He then went on to Peterhouse, Cambridge, winning blues in 1920 and 1921. After Cambridge, he went on to become master in charge of cricket at Dulwich College, a post that allowed him to play for Kent County Cricket Club in the school holidays from 1924 to 1937. He continued to be successful, and this led to his call-up for the England Test team for the Oval Test against the West Indies in 1933, aged 37. He took 5 for 37 in the first innings, and 6 for 59 in the second as the 'Windies' lost by an innings and 17 runs in two days and ten minutes, but he played no more Test cricket after that. He remains the only one-test wonder to have taken more than seven wickets.
Marriott was a less than capable fielder and batsman. He scored a mere 574 first-class runs compared to his 711 wicket tally.
Marriott toured abroad twice, first with the Honourable Lionel Tennyson's team that toured South Africa in 1924-25, and second with Douglas Jardine's official MCC team to India in 1933-34. There were three Test matches on this latter tour but he did not play in them. He did enjoy some successes though, and took a hat-trick against Madras (now Chennai).
Marriott was an anti-aircraft gunner in the Home Guard in World War II.