Frederick Morley

Frederick Morley, known as the fastest English bowler of his times, was born in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire. In his first-class cricket career of thirteen years he got more than 1200 wickets He also played four international matches for England. Marred by a rib injury, his career couldn’t flourish the way it could have been. He never got fully recovered from his injuries and it subsequently resulted into death due to congestion and dropsy at the age of 33.

Morley was a left-arm fast bowler. He played all his four international cricket matches against Australia. He took 16 wickets at an average of 18.50 and an economy rate of 1.82. His best bowling performance was 5 wickets for 56 runs against Australia. Not being much of a batsman, he scored 6 runs in the 6 Innings he played. In first-class cricket his performance was splendid with 1274 wickets at an average of 13.42 and economy rate of 1.91. He also scored 1404 runs in 232 matches and 355 Innings at an average of 1404. His highest score in first-class cricket was 31 runs.

Apart from playing, Fred Morley also umpired in two first-class and two other matches.

Career Highlights

He took 8 wickets for 26 runs in a first-class match against Cambridge University team.