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Malvern, Worcestershire born Maurice Foster began his first class career with Worcestershire when he made his debut against Lancashire in August 1908, having played a couple of games in Worcestershire’s Second XI in 1907, and made 20 in his only innings. He played twice more that season, and ten times in 1909, but without great success. There then followed the first of several gaps in his cricketing career as a consequence of his business commitments.
Though he played occasional minor games in Malaya over the next few years, he did not return to first class cricket until 1914, when he played 19 matches for Worcestershire, all in the County Championship. In scoring 1,103 runs at 31.51, he passed a thousand runs for the first time; he also hit two hundreds: 118 against Leicestershire in May, and what was to remain a career best 158 (in a losing cause) against Derbyshire in August.
The First World War then intervened, although Foster did play one first class game during hostilities, in India in November 1917. This was a game staged at Calcutta between the Bengal Governor’s XI (for whom Foster appeared, scoring 0 and 14) and the Maharaja of Cooch-Behar’s XI. The match was staged in aid of the “Our Day” Fund. The Governor’s side were bowled out for 33 and 59, losing by an innings to the Maharaja’s team, who made 138. Unusually, only two bowlers were used in each of the three innings in the match.
Foster returned to Worcestershire action in 1920, although for three seasons his continuing overseas business meant that his appearances remained limited. However, in 1923 he was able to play a full season, and for four years he was highly successful, scoring over 1,300 runs in each summer, making a total of ten hundreds. In the weak Worcestershire team of that era, Roy Genders considered that he “carr[ied] the side on his shoulders”. Foster was especially productive in June 1924, when he hit three centuries, and shortly afterwards was chosen for the Gentlemen against the Players at both The Oval and Lord’s, albeit with very little personal success.
He captained the County between 1923 and 1925, although it was the following year, after he had relinquished the role to previous incumbent Maurice Jewell, that saw his heaviest run scoring: 1,615 first-class runs at 32.95, with three hundreds and 12 fifties, including a hundred in each innings (141 and 106) against Hampshire. However, this was to be his last full season of first class cricket, and he never again made a first class fifty. He played three games in 1927, then not at all until his final four matches for the County seven years later, although he had turned out in the 1933 Minor Counties Championship for Staffordshire.
In 1935, Foster played for M.C.C. against Ireland in a minor match at Lord’s, then in early August 1936 played in an equivalent match, but one which did qualify as first class, at Dublin. In this, his final first class match, Foster both captained and kept wicket, and brought off the stumping of Ireland opener Francis Connell. He made no other dismissals, and his 18 and 47 could not prevent a heavy defeat. He then played club cricket for Walsall Cricket Club until shortly before his death in 1940; the club won the Birmingham League three times while he was there.
In 170 first class matches, 157 of which were for Worcestershire, Foster made 12 centuries and 40 half centuries, scoring 8,295 runs at an average of 28.70. An occasional right-arm medium pace bowler, he took 3 wickets in first class play with a best performance of 2-17, including dismissing no less a batsman as Jack Hobbs for 1 against Surrey in 1909, and he also took 140 catches in first class games, making 4 stumpings as an occasional wicket-keeper. Though not a specialist wicket-keeper, he acted as such for Worcestershire on a more than 20 occasions in the 1920’s.
He was one of three of the Foster brothers to captain the County, with his other brothers Basil, Geoffrey, Harry, Neville, Tip and Wilfrid, ‘Fostershire’ was a name jocularly applied to Worcestershire. Three nephews (Christopher Foster, Peter Foster and John Greenstock) and his brother-in-law William Greenstock also played first class cricket.
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