Lives in Cricket No 18 - FR Foster

Introduction What would the current cricketing establishment make of Frank Rowbotham Foster? Searing fast left-arm bowler, explosive batsman with the ability to touch the stars, brilliant field, unorthodox and inspiring captain. Yet ‘this gifted amateur appeared destined for greatness on the field – as long as talent could find its way to liberation through a personality which harboured more dark recesses than any ancient castle.’ 1 That Foster was a great cricketer is by no means universally accepted. Even in the bars and meeting rooms of Edgbaston, he is ranked high but not the highest. Among batsmen few allow anyone near Dennis Amiss, yet as a match winner he lags behind such figures as Brian Lara and Nick Knight. In bowling it is easier to place Eric Hollies top, though some suggest Allan Donald as a serious rival. All these players were backed by figures. For wicket-keepers it is difficult to judge; his contemporaries reckoned Dick Lilley was unexcelled, yet few who saw him can imagine a finer keeper than Keith Piper. But with regard to allrounders, Frank Foster is Warwickshire’s best, with no real challengers. In 127 county matches Foster scored 5,436 runs, av. 27.04 and took 587 wickets, av. 20.57. Only five other allrounders with any sort of career did so well all round that their batting average exceeded their bowling. They were W.G.Quaife, 33,862 runs (36.17), 900 wickets (27.53) in 665 matches; R.E.S.Wyatt 21,687 runs (41.54), 652 wickets (32.82) in 404 matches; T.W.Cartwright 10,780 runs (22.09), 1,058 wickets (18.75) in 353 matches; D.R.Brown 8,066 runs (30.90), 515 wickets (29.79) in 197 matches; and A.F.Giles 3,297 runs (30.24), 323 wickets (26.19) in 100 matches. Actually these figures are misleading; only Foster was a genuine allrounder match after match, throughout a career. Yet can one quantify allround skills and effectiveness on bald figures? Some have tried. In The Cricket Society News Bulletin for November 2007, Keith Walmsley attempted to establish a system for calculating the best allround figures during an English season. Walmsley awarded one point for each run scored, ten for every wicket taken and added them together. Most points indicated the best allround season but the method was unsatisfactory since the more matches played meant more points were likely to accrue. Then there were players who scored a huge number of runs and took a few wickets like Denis Compton and Bill Edrich in 1947. Their inflated totals certainly were not owed to allround worth. However, that George Hirst, by a long way, has the highest ever points total for a county season, when he 8 1 Brian Halford, Birmingham Mail , in unpublished MS on the 1911 season.