Fane Frederick Image 3 Essex 1907

Description

Curragh Camp, County Kildare, Ireland born right handed batsman Frederick Fane was educated at Charterhouse School, where he was in the cricket XI from 1892 to 1894, and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he gained a Blue in 1897. He began playing for Essex from 1895, becoming the County’s captain from 1904 to 1906. In 1899 he put together his highest innings, 207 against Leicestershire. At Leyton in 1905, when Essex beat the Australians by 19 runs, Fane ended the match with a remarkable catch at a position approximating to deep long-stop where, with Buckenham bowling very fast, he had placed himself to save possible byes. His best season for the County was in 1906 when he scored 1,572 runs, at an average of 34.

Making his Test match debut for England against South Africa at Johannesburg in January 1906, Fane captained the England cricket team on five occasions: three times when he took over from the injured Arthur Jones, and twice when he took over from H.D.G. Leveson-Gower. He won two and lost three of these games and played 14 Test matches for England with his final Test coming at Cape Town in March 1910. He was also Jack Hobbs’s opening partner in Hobbs’s first Test, at Melbourne in January 1908. In that match, Fane top-scored in the second innings with 50 as England squeaked home by one wicket. On the tour, he scored 774 runs in 23 innings, including two centuries, averaging 34.

He was the first Irish born player to score a century in a Test match for England, making 143 against South Africa at Johannesburg in March 1906, and remained the only one to do so for over a hundred years,until Eoin Morgan repeated the feat against Pakistan at Trent Bridge in July 2010. In his Test match career he averaged 26.23 with 3 further half centuries.

During the First World War Fane was commissioned in the West Yorkshire Regiment. He was awarded the Military Cross in 1917 “for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty while commanding a patrol. Having obtained valuable information, he withdrew his men from a difficult position under heavy machine gun fire. He displayed the greatest coolness and determination.”

He continued to play for Essex until 1924, and in 417 first class matches he scored 18,548 runs at an average of 27.39 including 25 centuries and 83 half centuries. He also took 2 wickets as an occasional bowler, returning 2-17 in his only successful innings, and took 194 catches in first class play.