Franklyn Stephenson
Encyclopedia
| Franklyn Stephenson Tasmanian Tigers Tasmanian Tigers The Tasmanian cricket team, nicknamed the Tigers, represents the Australian state of Tasmania in cricket tournaments. They compete annually in the Australian domestic senior men's cricket season, which currently consists of the first-class Sheffield Shield, the limited overs Ford Ranger Cup, and... , Barbados Barbados national cricket team The Barbadian cricket team is the representative first class cricket team of Barbados.It does not take part in any international competitions , but rather in inter-regional competitions in the Caribbean, such as the Regional Four Day Competition and the WICB Cup, and the best players may be... , Orange Free State Orange Free State cricket team The Free State cricket team is the first-class cricket team representing the province of Free State in South Africa.... , Gloucestershire County Cricket Club Gloucestershire County Cricket Club Gloucestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Gloucestershire. Its limited overs team is called the Gloucestershire Gladiators.... , Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Nottinghamshire, and the current county champions. Its limited overs team is called the Nottinghamshire Outlaws... , & Sussex County Cricket Club Sussex County Cricket Club Sussex County Cricket Club is the oldest of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Sussex. The club was founded as a successor to Brighton Cricket Club which was a representative of the county of Sussex as a... |
||
| Batting style | Right-Hand Batsman | |
| Bowling type Types of bowlers in cricket In the sport of cricket there are two broad categories of bowlers: pace bowlers and spin bowlers. Pace bowlers rely mostly on the speed of the ball to dismiss batsmen, whereas spin bowlers rely on the rotation of the ball.-Pace bowlers:... |
Right-Arm Fast | |
| First Class | "A" Matches | |
| Matches | 219 | 282 |
| Runs scored | 8622 | 4717 |
| Batting average Batting average Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball that measures the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters. The two statistics are related in that baseball averages are directly descended from the concept of cricket averages.- Cricket :... |
27.99 | 22.67 |
| 100s/50s | 12/43 | 2/16 |
| Top score | 166 | 108 |
| balls bowled | 40303 | 14301 |
| Wicket Wicket In the sport of cricket the word wicket has several distinct meanings:-Definitions of wicket:Most of the time, the wicket is one of the two sets of three stumps and two bails at either end of the pitch... s |
792 | 448 |
| Bowling average Bowling average Bowling average is a statistic measuring the performance of bowlers in the sport of cricket.A bowler's bowling average is defined as the total number of runs conceded by the bowlers divided by the number of wickets taken by the bowler, so the lower the average the better. It is similar to earned... |
24.26 | 19.91 |
| 5 wickets in innings Innings An inning, or innings, is a fixed-length segment of a game in any of a variety of sports – most notably cricket and baseball during which one team attempts to score while the other team attempts to prevent the first from scoring. In cricket, the term innings is both singular and plural and is... |
44 | 9 |
| 10 wickets in match | 10 | 0 |
| Best bowling | 8/47 | 6/9 |
| Catches/stumpings | 100/0 | 61/0 |
As of 24 March 2007 Source: Cricinfo.com |
||
Franklyn DaCosta Stephenson, born at Saint James, Barbados on 8 April 1959, is a former cricketer
Cricketer
A cricketer is a person who plays the sport of cricket. Official and long-established cricket publications prefer the traditional word "cricketer" over the rarely used term "cricket player"....
who had a first-class
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
career for teams in four continents. He was a hard-hitting middle-order batsman and a right-arm bowler who, at his peak, was genuinely fast; in addition, he developed a pioneering slower ball
Slower ball
In the sport of cricket, a slower ball is a slower-than-usual delivery from a fast bowler. The bowler's intention is to deceive the batsman into playing too early so that he either misses the ball completely or hits it high up in the air to offer an easy catch...
and was the first bowler to use it regularly in one-day cricket.
A true all-rounder, Stephenson came to prominence first playing for the West Indies
West Indian cricket team
The West Indian cricket team, also known colloquially as the West Indies or the Windies, is a multi-national cricket team representing a sporting confederation of 15 mainly English-speaking Caribbean countries, British dependencies and non-British dependencies.From the mid 1970s to the early 1990s,...
Young Cricketers team that toured England in 1978. Then, in less than eight months from the end of October 1981, he made his first-class debut, first in Australia, playing for Tasmania
Tasmanian Tigers
The Tasmanian cricket team, nicknamed the Tigers, represents the Australian state of Tasmania in cricket tournaments. They compete annually in the Australian domestic senior men's cricket season, which currently consists of the first-class Sheffield Shield, the limited overs Ford Ranger Cup, and...
, then for his native Barbados, and finally for Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire County Cricket Club
Gloucestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Gloucestershire. Its limited overs team is called the Gloucestershire Gladiators....
in England.
But the debut that was to a large extent to define Stephenson's career was his one the following winter, 1982–83, on a fourth continent. He joined the rebel West Indies XI, led by Lawrence Rowe
Lawrence Rowe
Lawrence George Rowe is a former West Indian cricketer.Lawrence, also known as "Yagga", was an elegant right-handed batsman described by Michael Holding, his team mate, as "the best batsman I ever saw". It was felt that his ability was so extraordinary that Sobers believed he could have been the...
and Alvin Kallicharran
Alvin Kallicharran
Alvin Isaac Kallicharran is a former West Indian batsman of Indo-Guyanese ethnicity who played from 1972 to 1981. His elegant, watchful batting style produced some substantial innings for a West Indian team very much in its formative years in the seventies...
, that toured South Africa, and played in so-called "Test" matches and "One Day Internationals" against the South African national cricket team
South African cricket team
The South African national cricket team represent South Africa in international cricket. They are administrated by Cricket South Africa.South Africa is a full member of the International Cricket Council, also known as ICC, with Test and One Day International, or ODI, status...
that had been barred from world cricket because of apartheid. The rebel West Indian cricketers were themselves then barred from all levels of West Indies cricket for life, until the ban was lifted in 1992, and Stephenson never played true Test cricket
Test cricket
Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...
. He is widely regarded as the greatest cricketer never to have played for the West Indies.
In fact, unlike most of the West Indian rebels, Stephenson did return to cricket in the West Indies, playing for Barbados in the 1989-90 Red Stripe Cup series. But most of his career was spent playing for English county teams and for Free State
Orange Free State cricket team
The Free State cricket team is the first-class cricket team representing the province of Free State in South Africa....
in South Africa.
Stephenson's first season for Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club
Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Nottinghamshire, and the current county champions. Its limited overs team is called the Nottinghamshire Outlaws...
in 1988 was sensational. Since the reduction in English first-class games in 1969, only one player, the New Zealander Richard Hadlee
Richard Hadlee
Sir Richard John Hadlee, MBE is a former New Zealand cricketer who played provincial cricket for Canterbury, Nottinghamshire and Tasmania. He is the son of Walter Hadlee, and the brother of Dayle and Barry Hadlee. His former wife Karen also played international cricket for New Zealand.Hadlee was...
, had achieved the all-rounder's "double"
Double (cricket)
A cricketer is said to achieve the double if he scores a thousand or more runs and also takes a hundred or more wickets in first-class matches during the course of a single season. The feat is extremely rare outside England because of the smaller number of first-class matches played in most other...
of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets. Stephenson in 1988 became the second and, so far, the last to achieve this feat, making 1018 runs and taking 125 wickets. He was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1989 for this achievement, and was also the Cricket Society's leading all-rounder. Stephenson's feat was all the more remarkable in that he bought up the run-scoring part of the double by scoring centuries in each innings of Nott's final match of the season against Yorkshire
Yorkshire County Cricket Club
Yorkshire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Yorkshire as one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure....
- and also took 11 wickets in the game. Despite this truly outstanding all round performance, Notts lost the match by 127 runs.
Without quite achieving those heights again, Stephenson was an effective all-rounder for three further seasons for Nottinghamshire, before he transferred in 1992 to Sussex
Sussex County Cricket Club
Sussex County Cricket Club is the oldest of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Sussex. The club was founded as a successor to Brighton Cricket Club which was a representative of the county of Sussex as a...
, where he had four further productive seasons. In 1994, he again took the leading all-rounder award with more than 750 runs and 67 wickets.
Stephenson retired from English county cricket after 1995, and from South African domestic cricket after the 1996-97 season.
In addition to his cricketing career, Stephenson, a keen golfer, is also credited with one of only two birdies on the Extreme 19th
Extreme 19th
The Extreme 19th is the highest and longest par three golf hole in the world, located at the Legend Golf & Safari Resort in the Entabeni Safari Conservatory, Limpopo Province, South Africa. The hole was conceived by Graham Cooke of the UK, and designed by David Riddle.The tee, located at the top...
in South Africa.