The Cricket Statistician No 195

23 Batting Matches Inns NO Runs HS Avge 50 100 Ct St FC matches 10 18 6 231 43 19.30 0 0 1 0 Other matches 82 100 7 1729 96* 18.60 8 0 21 0 Total matches 92 118 13 1960 96* 18.70 8 0 22 0 Bowling Balls Mdns Runs Wks BB Avge 5w 10m FC matches 85 1 50 1 1-4 50.00 0 0 Other matches 7 48 754 81 7-61 9.30 3 0 Total matches 1432 49 804 82 7-61 18.70 3 0 *This bowling analysis for the ‘other matches’ and ‘total matches’ are only based on known figures. Not all bowling figures were reported by the press, or the M.C.C., and whilst the number of wickets is accurate, the balls, maidens and runs are not. Conan Doyle’s final match for MCC was on the 26 and 27 August 1912, against the Sussex Martlets at Brighton. He scored 7 in the first innings and didn’t bat in the second. Appended to this article is a complete list of Arthur Conan Doyle’s matches for MCC, which some readers may find of interest. The match against Sussex Martlets is, in fact, the last known cricket match to be played by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Further research may, of course, find further matches, but research so far has referenced at least 380 matches played by him. He scored at least twenty-eight 50s and four centuries. His centuries were scored for Portsmouth Borough (111* v Royal Artillery Southern Division in May 1889), Norwood Club (104* v Dulwich College in August 1892, and 100 v Burlington Wanderers in July 1894), and Authors (101* v Press in September 1896, at Lord’s). Conan Doyle achieved at least 38 five wicket hauls. His best was a resounding 10 for 16 for the aforementioned Suffolk County Asylum, against 1 st King’s Dragoon Guards in August 1894 at Norwich. Whilst the fascination for cricket remained, Arthur now took part in fewer sports of an energetic nature. He began to play golf, where he captained the Crowborough Beacon side, and billiards, at which he appears to have been quite adept, winning the Authors Club Handicap Cup in 1911. In February 1911 he had been elected president of the Amateur Field Event Association, and would later be involved in launching an appeal to fund the British Olympic team. The events of WWI, and the influenza epidemic which followed, resulted in the deaths of friends, acquaintances, his brother Innes and his son Kingsley. His life-long fascination for spirituality and psychic phenomena now became the major driver of his life. His last few years were spent less on literature or sport and more on spiritualism and mediums. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle passed away on 7 July 1930 at Windlesham, Crowborough, Sussex.