Fishwick Tom Image 1 Warwickshire 1902

Description

Stone, Staffordshire born right-handed middle order batsman and an occasional wicketkeeper Tom Fishwick was educated at Wellingborough School and played in the inaugural Minor Counties Championship in 1895 for his native Staffordshire. He was described in The Times as “Mr Fishwick of Handsworth-wood” at the time of his first first class match for Warwickshire against Derbyshire in August 1896. In the match, he scored 55, the top score of the single innings completed as rain wiped out most of the first and all of the last day. After this promising start, Fishwick’s career failed to develop in the next two seasons and he did not improve on his highest score.

From 1899, Fishwick appeared pretty regularly in the Warwickshire team, and started making serious runs. His first century was an innings of 109 in the match against Hampshire at Edgbaston in July 1899, putting on 182 for the fourth wicket with Willie Quaife, though that partnership was overshadowed by the unbroken 194 that Quaife, who made 207, later put on with Alfred Glover in the same match. There were centuries in the next two seasons as well, and the unbeaten 140 that he made in the game against Derbyshire in 1901 proved to be the highest of his career: the 361 runs Warwickshire made in that innings came in just over 90 overs, a prodigious rate of scoring for the time, and Fishwick was known at the time as a fast scorer and a powerful hitter.

He was less successful in 1902 and 1903 but had his best seasons with the bat in 1904 and 1905, passing 1,000 runs in these two years with the 1905 aggregate of 1,440 runs at an average of 32.00 and with four centuries his best. Fewer matches in 1906 meant that his aggregate dropped, but his batting average of 41.77 for that season was his best in any single season. Thereafter his record fell away and he scored no more centuries.

In addition to his batting, Fishwick was also a fine fielder at slip and the 40 catches he took for Warwickshire in 1905 (41 in all matches in the season) remained the County record until beaten by Alan Townsend in 1951.

As an amateur and a regular player, Fishwick captained Warwickshire frequently from 1900 onwards, but was officially County captain in 1902 only, though the increasingly irregular appearances of the official captain James Byrne in 1906 and 1907 meant that he was often called on to deputise. Unlike other amateurs of the period, he played very little cricket away from Warwickshire: one match for W. G. Grace’s London County in 1901 in which he scored a century; a game for “An England XI” in 1905, plus one for “Gentlemen of the South” in the same year; and a final match for J. Bamford’s XI in 1907.

Fishwick left County cricket after the 1909 season and became secretary of the Hunstanton Golf Club, later moving to the Isle of Wight where he was secretary of the Shanklin and Sandown Golf Club. In 210 first class matches he scored 8,833 at an average of 26.28, with 13 centuries and 45 half centuries, taking 231 catches and making two stumpings.