Claude Buckenham

Percy Buckenham
Personal information
Full name
Claude Percival Buckenham
Born(1876-01-16)16 January 1876
Herne Hill, London, England
Died23 February 1937(1937-02-23) (aged 61)
Dundee, Scotland
BattingRight-handed
BowlingRight-arm fast
RoleOpening bowler
International information
National side
Test debut (cap 165)1 January 1910 v South Africa
Last Test9 March 1910 v South Africa
Domestic team information
YearsTeam
1899–1914Essex
Career statistics
Competition Tests First-class
Matches 4 307
Runs scored 43 5641
Batting average 6.14 14.50
100s/50s –/– 2/12
Top score 17 124
Balls bowled 1182 52148
Wickets 21 1150
Bowling average 28.23 25.31
5 wickets in innings 1 85
10 wickets in match 17
Best bowling 5/115 8/33
Catches/stumpings 2/– 172/–
Source: CricketArchive, 20 June 2009

Association football career
Position(s) Right back
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
Santos
International career
Essex
Great Britain Olympic 1 (0)
Medal record
Men's football
Representing  Great Britain
Gold medal – first place 1900 Paris Team Competition
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Claude Percival Buckenham (16 January 1876 – 23 February 1937) was an English first-class cricketer who played for Essex and England.[1] He also won a gold medal playing football at the Olympic Games in 1900.

Life and career[edit]

Tall and gangling, and with a distinctive moustache, Percy Buckenham was a fast bowler and a useful lower order batsman. He played for Essex from 1899 to 1914, but suffered, particularly in his early years, from slipshod fielding which meant, according to his obituary in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, he was more expensive than he perhaps deserved.[2] His career average, at more than 25, is high for the era in which he played.

The 1906 season was the first in which he took more than 100 wickets, and he played several representative matches over the next few English seasons without breaking into the Test match team in England. He was picked in the squad for the fifth Test at The Oval against the 1909 Australians, but was then left out of the team: his omission was described by Sydney Pardon, editor of Wisden, as "a fatal blunder" and the selectors' decision not to include a fast bowler at all "touched the confines of lunacy".[3]

Buckenham's only Test experience came on the 1909-10 tour to South Africa, under the captaincy of H. D. G. Leveson Gower. In four Tests, he took 21 wickets at 28 runs apiece, including five for 115 in the first South African innings of the third Test at Johannesburg. But though he had his most productive season in 1911, with 134 first-class wickets, he was considered too old for the 1911-12 tour to Australia.[4]

Buckenham was a good amateur footballer and played county soccer for Essex. He played right-back for the Upton Park F.C. team that won the inaugural Olympic football tournament in 1900.[5] He is one of only four male Test cricketers to compete at the Olympic Games.[6]

Buckenham retired from first-class cricket in 1914 to become professional at the Scottish club Forfarshire. After serving with the Royal Garrison Artillery in the First World War he became cricket coach at Repton School.[2]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Claude Buckenham". ESPNcricinfo. Retrieved 23 August 2021.
  2. ^ a b "Obituary, 1937". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (1938 ed.). Wisden. pp. 936–937.
  3. ^ "Notes by the Editor". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. Vol. Part I (1910 ed.). Wisden. pp. 171–172.
  4. ^ Christopher Martin-Jenkins. The Complete Who's Who of Test Cricketers (1980 ed.). Orbis. p. 27.
  5. ^ "Claude Buckenham". Olympedia. Retrieved 26 December 2020.
  6. ^ "Olympians Who Played First-Class Cricket". Olympedia. Retrieved 23 August 2021.

External links[edit]