lastagainst deliveries death_date lastdate debutyear columns catches/stumpings year birth_date bowling debutagainst tenfor death_place club fivefor batting name fullname debutfor birth_place column debutdate source type lastyear runs date wickets lastfor s/s matches article_title
lancashire balls 8,671 6 august 1898 4 august 1870 1 56 / -- 1870 1871 -- 1884 2010 23 november 1848 right arm fast , later slow nottinghamshire 0 derby , derbyshire , england mcc derbyshire 7 left-handed john platts john thomas brown dumelow platts mcc chellaston , derbyshire , england first-class 13 june http://cricketarchive.com/players/32/32094/32094.html cricketarchive first-class 1884 2,237 1848 11 23 yes 195 derbyshire 1/5 97 john platts

john platts

john thomas brown dumelow platts -lrb- 23 november 1848 -- 6 august 1898 -rrb- was an english cricketer who played for derbyshire between 1871 and 1884 .
he was a member of the team that played derbyshire 's first match in may 1871 .
platts was born to robert and alice platts -lrb- née dumelow -rrb- in chellaston , derbyshire .
in his youth , he worked in the local gypsum mines , and in his spare time would pretend to play cricket by bowling stones at imaginary batsmen .
an early game was for hallam and staveley in 1861 against an all england eleven .
he was a wheelwright by trade , but by 1868 was a professional at ipswich school .
in 1869 he played for dudley and also for the gentlemen of worcester when he took 8 wickets in an innings .
in 1870 , lord coventry helped raise a subscription for platts to join the marylebone cricket club .
platts played a single first class game for mcc against nottinghamshire in june 1870 which resulted in tragedy .
he was fast bowling on a badly laid wicket at lords when the ball struck the batsman george summers on the head .
summers retired hurt and appeared to recover , but died four days later .
w. g. grace was also playing for mcc in the match and commented on the incident '' ... the bowler was not in the least to blame for the catastrophe , but he was terribly cut up , and i shall never forget his mental distraction . ''
platts later turned out against all england xi 's , first for lichfield when he took 10 wickets in the match , and then for wirksworth where he was upstaged by another future derbyshire player dove gregory .
after derbyshire county cricket club was established , platts played in the club 's first match in the 1871 season against lancashire in may , and for thirteen years thereafter .
although undistinguished in the first game , he came in to bowl in the second match that season and took 5 for 34 .
during the 1872 season he took 5 -- 51 in the first innings of the second match against lancashire .
he took four wickets in the 1873 season , while his batting scores improved significantly in the 1874 season .
all through these early years platt appeared in matches involving all england xis and united south of england xis sometimes for them and sometimes against them .
he was usually against the side in which w. g. grace was playing .
at birmingham in 1874 he was bowled by grace , but in 1876 , turning out for an assortment of clubs including swansea , barrow , birmingham and stockport , he took grace 's wicket twice .
for derbyshire in the 1876 season he was top scorer with 235 .
his first-class bowling took a step forward and he took 6 -- 68 for derbyshire against kent .
in the 1877 season he made his top score of 115 against hampshire , which was the club 's first century , and topped the scoring for derbyshire again with 432 .
he took 5 -- 18 against lancashire that year .
he continued playing other matches for and against other clubs , although this tailed out in the early 1880s .
by 1881 he was running the `` rose and crown '' public house at chellaston as well as being a professional cricketer .
in the 1880 season he took 5 -- 26 against yorkshire , in the 1881 season 6 -- 39 against lancashire and in the 1882 season 5 -- 48 against lancashire .
platts played against a line-up of australians several times during the early part of the decade , fixtures intended to help the young members of the international side do their homework for possible upcoming test fixtures against england .
after the final one of these in which he participated , platts played one final game , and , having continued steadily up the order during his career , played his penultimate game in the 1884 season as an opener .
platts was a left-handed batsman and a right-arm round-arm slow bowler , with the added bonus of some occasionally fiendish pace to his straight-arm action .
platts started umpiring in 1885 immediately after he stopped playing and took 69 first class games until 1896 .
later , john platts was diagnosed with tuberculosis and died at his home in august 1898 , at the age of 49 .
