Chris Read and the Notts Dismissal Record

Congratulation to Chris Read on breaking Tom Oates long standing record against Derbyshire on Wednesday 9th August 2017.

25 June 2017

THE PERFECT 10


Chris Read needs 10 more dismissals this Championship summer to become Nottinghamshire's most successful wicketkeeper in terms of total FCC dismissals and now that is "official".

Following investigations, it is now agreed that 7 more catches by Tom Oates can be attributed to his wicket keeping duties which makes his career record 967. This has been agreed between CricketArchive and Nottinghamshire CCC statistics guardian Peter Wynne-Thomas  (also club President) - with a little help from his friends and records have been amended (see below).

Chris Read prior to the floodlit experimental round of championship cricket, against Kent, stands on 958.

23/06/17

Media reports (Electronic, printed and Radio) have been mentioning this for several weeks now but some folk have had their doubts about the true figure that Chris must to beat to hold the record.

Nottsview contributor JAG has written to CricketArchive making the case that the current holder of the Nottinghamshire wicket keeping dismissal record has incorrectly had 7 of his catches not attributed to his wicket keeping records.

JAG's letter:


The Nottinghamshire Wicket Keeper Chris Read may, injury permitting break the Nottinghamshire total dismalls record this season, but not as early as many of you may think. He currently has 958 dismissals and Tom Oates had 967, i.e. Read requires 10 to break the record. This fact is not currently reflected in any of your records so to prove the point, four of us have been attempting to prove that Cricketarchive and the Nottinghamshire year book and more importantly the press are also using incorrect information. This email attempts to prove the errors and to lead to corrections to cricketarchive to enable Read, if he beats the record to be accredited at the correct time i.e. If and when he gets to 968 dismissals.

The four of us who have been checking this out are Peter Wynne-Thomas, David Gretton and Michael and John Goulder.

The Nottinghamshire yearbook incorrectly states Oates as having 957 dismissals. It should be 967.

Cricketarchive incorrectly states Tom Oates as having 960 dismissals as Wicket Keeper, yet it does correctly state that he had 967 dismissals in total.

Prior to World War 2, the official county scorebooks do not record who the wicketkeeper was, and in many cases the wicket keeper may have been guessed by the person inputting the scorecard into the archive system. So for the four matches in error the Nottinghamshire scorebook does not list the keeper so we have had to go to the original newspaper records, evidence is attached to this email, which prove to us that Oates was definitely the wicket keeper and cricketarchive needs to be amended. Here are the aforementioned four attachments, all from the relevant Nottingham Evening Posts:

The error matches are as follows :-

The four games that Oates did not keep according Cricket Archive which account for the extra seven dismissals are as follows
Game 235
f8462 Marylebone Cricket Club v Nottinghamshire

Other First-Class matches in England 1912

Venue Lord's Cricket Ground, St John's Wood on 1st, 2nd, 3rd May 1912 (3-day match)
Alletson rather than Oates as keeper (Oates had no dismissals in this match)

Game 332
f9905
cc3934 Essex v Nottinghamshire

County Championship 1921

Venue County Ground, Leyton on 8th, 9th, 10th June 1921 (3-day match)
Lilley keeper rather than Oates (Oates 2 catches, Lilley zero) Lilley’s debut

Game 418
f11175
cc4769 Nottinghamshire v Derbyshire

County Championship 1925

Venue Trent Bridge, Nottingham on 16th, 18th, 19th May 1925 (3-day match
Whysall keeper rather than Oates (Oates 4 catches, Whysall 1). Given the respective number of catches taken it seems inconceivable that Whysall kept 

Game 419
f11206
cc4795 Nottinghamshire v Surrey

County Championship 1925

Venue Trent Bridge, Nottingham on 30th May, 1st, 2nd June 1925 (3-day match)
Lilley keeper rather than Oates (Oates 1 catch, Lilley Zero) 

In game 235 Edwin Boaler Alletson rather than Tom Oates is listed on cricketarchive as the keeper. Alletson had a build possibly similar to Luke Fletcher, and it is highly unlikely that he would be the keeper, as Oates did not take any dismissals in that match it requires correcting but is not significant to the totals.

Having read a lot of match reports in NEP from the era today, the language used can be very telling and so conclusions can be drawn:

In the Essex game the best evidence for Tom Oates keeping in  the report says that one of TO's catches was "behind the wicket"

In the Derby game there are several highlighted references to who did what and where.

In the Surrey game, that phrase "behind the wicket" again to a Tom Oates catch.

We would have to say the Tom Oates was keeper in all of those games as slip catches are reported as slip catches or caught at slip, so it follows that behind wicket is as it suggests, the bloke keeping wicket, behind the wicket.

JAG

It's not 100% conclusive proof but it's better than a wild guess, IMHO. 

DDG