Diver Edwin Image 2 Warwickshire 1899

Description

Cambridge born Edwin Diver qualified to play cricket for Surrey by residence as a schoolmaster at a school in Wimbledon and played for the County for four years making his debut against Hampshire in May 1883. In the first three seasons, he played as an amateur. Though to modern eyes his figures do not look out of the ordinary, his early career with Surrey was judged as “short but brilliant” by the editor of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, Sydney Pardon: in the obituary of Diver in the 1925 edition, Pardon wrote that he had been “a most attractive batsman in point of style, with splendid hitting power on the off side” and that his success had been instant.

In 1884, Diver was awarded his County cap by Surrey and was also selected for some of the most significant first class matches of the season: the games between a “Gentlemen of England” side and the Australian touring team and the Gentlemen v Players match at The Oval. Pardon remembered the first match between the Gentlemen and the Australians more than 40 years on and reckoned it as “perhaps the most memorable in which he [Diver] ever took part”. He wrote:

“The Australians had to follow on, but they set the Gentlemen 128 to get in the last innings and against Palmer and Giffen, bowling at the top of their form on a worn pitch, the task proved a formidable one. Indeed, the Australians looked to be winning when, with six wickets down and 45 still required, Diver joined A.G. Steel. Rising to the occasion, they hit off the runs without being separated. One can remember the finish as well as if the match had been played last season. Except that Diver put one ball up – it dropped out of reach over Boyle’s head at short mid-on – the batting was flawless.”

Diver’s scores in the game were only 4 and 22 not out. In the return match, which the Australians won, his scores were 20 and 0. His trio of representative matches that season were completed with failure to score in either innings in the Gentlemen v Players game.

For Surrey, Diver’s best season was 1885 when he scored 941 runs in first class matches and made his only century for the team, an innings of 143 against Oxford University. For the 1886 season, however, Diver went on to the Surrey staff as a professional cricketer: he was less successful as a batsman that season, though he did appear for the Players in the Gentlemen v Players fixture, an unusual distinction having played for the Gentlemen in 1884. He scored 25 runs in his only innings, the final day of the match being lost to rain. He did not stay at Surrey after the end of the season however: a note in The Times at the start of the 1887 season reported that he had returned to Cambridge.

Diver disappears from cricket records for the four seasons after he left Surrey in 1886, and there are no records of him in minor cricket either. He reappeared in 1891 playing for clubs in the Birmingham area, including the Warwickshire Club and Ground team. In both 1891 and 1892, he played in first class North v South matches, each time acting as wicket-keeper as well as batsman, and in 1893 he was picked for a “Second Class Counties” eleven which played a first class match against the Australians.

From 1894, Warwickshire’s matches against other first class cricket teams counted as first class and the County club began assembling a full professional side: Diver was in the side from the beginning and became a professional cricketer again. Described as “a singularly graceful bat… his wrist play in particular being very fine”, he played in the first Warwickshire first class game, a match against Nottinghamshire in which Diver was prominent in a Warwickshire victory, though not for the expected reasons. In the Nottinghamshire second innings, Diver took 6-58 runs in 30.3 overs: these were the only wickets Diver took in a first class career that stretched over 19 years, and he bowled more balls in this single innings than he did in any other complete cricket season. The Birmingham Daily Post was particularly enthusiastic about Diver’s bowling. It wrote that he had bowled very well “and should be most serviceable as a change bowler this season.” It continued: “His great height gives him every advantage, and the ball delivered right over comes up very fast from the pitch. He bowls well on the offside to his field, and it will surprise us if he does not obtain a good number of wickets in Warwickshire’s County matches.”

Those hopes were not realised, but Diver settled into an eight year period in which he was a regular No 3 or middle order batsman with the Warwickshire side, which competed in the County Championship from the 1895 season. He was not always successful: in 1895, he played in only seven matches and averaged only 12 runs an innings, but later in the 1890’s he was the County’s leading batsman in some seasons. In 1896, he scored 998 runs at an average of 32.19, and the runs included his first Warwickshire century, an unbeaten innings of 112 made in the match against Essex. In this game he also kept wicket in the absence of the regular Warwickshire wicket-keeper, Dick Lilley, on Test match duty; he also on occasion kept wicket while Lilley’s sometimes effective bowling was used. His best season with the bat in terms of aggregate was 1899, when he scored more than 1,000 runs in a season for the only time in his career: 1,096 at an average of 29.62. This season produced his highest innings, a score of 184 made out of a total of just 276 on the first day of the match against Leicestershire; Diver had made 121 by lunchtime. It also saw a recall to representative cricket, with an appearance for The Players in the Gentlemen v Players match, though he contributed only seven runs to a total of 647, and selection for a Midland Counties XI against the Australians, when he again failed as a batsman.

The 1900 season was not successful for Diver. He scored just 421 runs in 19 matches for an average of 16.19, and passed 50 just twice. A report at the start of the 1901 season indicates that Diver appeared for practice with the Warwickshire team, though it also states that the County Club was in severe financial difficulties. In the event, Diver played in only one match, the away fixture with Surrey at The Oval in July 1901, and that was the last game of his first class career.

Diver was formally not re-engaged by Warwickshire for the 1902 season but by August a local newspaper in his home town of Cambridge was reporting that he had been expected to turn out for Cambridgeshire in a fixture against the newly reformed Suffolk side, but had not played; he was described as “engaged at Hunstanton”. In 1903, he was a professional at Newport, Monmouthshire and averaged more than 50 runs per innings in topping the averages. He also played in a minor match for a Monmouthshire side, and continued then to play for the County when it joined the Minor Counties in 1905, right through to the First World War’s outbreak in 1914, acting as a middle order batsman and frequently as wicketkeeper. He also played in South Wales sides from 1905 to 1907 that played minor matches against the touring teams from Australia, the West Indies and South Africa. Diver remained as a cricket professional and coach at Newport until the early 1920’s.

In 205 first class matches between 1883 and 1901, Diver scored 7,245 runs at an average of exactly 23, with five centuries and 45 half centuries. He also took 117 catches and made 4 stumpings as a wicket-keeper.

He also played football as a goalkeeper. Beginning his career as an amateur, he played for Reigate Priory and Clapham Rovers in 1883, representing the Surrey County side that year, and in 1887 he played for Cassandra of Cambridge, and for the Cambridgeshire County side in 1888. He also played for The Granta in 1888, Cassandra and the Cambridge Swifts in 1889, and Cambridge Rovers in 1890. Moving to the Midlands, he signed as a professional for Aston Villa, and made 3 appearances for Villa in the Football League, making his League debut in a win at Bolton Wanderers in April 1892, playing in Aston Villa’s final three fixtures of the season. He then retired from football to concentrate on his professional cricket career with Warwickshire.

He was the nephew of the mid-Victorian cricketer Alfred Diver, who played for Cambridgeshire, Middlesex and Nottinghamshire between 1843 and 1866.