Frank Field (cricketer, born 1874)

Frank Ernest Field or Ernest Frank Field (23 September 1874 in Weethley, Warwickshire, England – 25 August 1934 in Droitwich, Worcestershire, England) was a Warwickshire fast bowler who is best remembered for sharing with Frank Foster the bowling honours in Warwickshire's flukish County Championship triumph in the abnormally dry summer of 1911 — the only time any county outside the "Big Six"^[a] won between 1890 and 1935.

However, aside from this triumph, Field had a long career before Foster even played for Warwickshire. Indeed, if Foster’s career was tragic, Field’s was in many ways more so, for a succession of serious accidents hampered him at exactly the time he would otherwise have become a top-class fast bowler and a candidate for representative honours.

Field had no pretensions to be a batsman, but at his best was a bowler of considerable pace and capable of a sharp break-back on a worn or fiery pitch,^[1] as was shown most clearly in Warwickshire’s crucial win against Yorkshire on a newly laid and severely criticised Harrogate pitch in 1911,^[2] when he took 7 for 20 to bowl Yorkshire out for 58. He was over 6 feet or 183 centimetres tall, broad shouldered and highly muscular,^[3] but was often criticised for not getting his arm high enough.^[1]

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).