KENT PROFESSIONAL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20509, 29 August 1936, Page 16

KENT PROFESSIONAL

NEW MAN IN ENGLAND'S TEAM

“The Cricketer” gives an interesting : sketch of A. E. Fagg, the youthful Kent professional, who has been selected as a member of the English cricket team, which is to tour Australia and New Zealand during the coming season. While at the Payne Smith School, Canterbury, A. E. Fagg fared so well during his final season in the School XI that he hit seven hundreds and secured 50 wickets. This achievement resulted in an engagement, the following summer, on the Kent County staff. Good work for the club and ground and Kent II soon brought recognition, and at the early age of 17 he was tried for his county against Warwickshire at Birmingham on July 13, 1932. In his only innings he scored 15, and then followed the match with Leicestershire at Maidstone. On this occasion Fagg went in first, and of his 30 runs “Wisden” wrote that he “batted in excellent style for an hour and a half.” The following season, 1933, might be said to have been a season of acclimatisation, and in 18 innings his best score was 50. But 1934 soon brought about a notable advance. A score of 111 in mid-May against Somerset gave him the necessary confidence, and, becoming a regular member of the team. 1 Fagg finished up with the capital I record of 1235 runs, average 32. His 1 strong defensive play and range of strokes all round the wicket were a rare tribute to the coaching of Humphreys, the old Kent opening batsman, who incidentally, took part in the raid on Zebrugge. Last season Fagg again averaged 32, but his runs increased to 1835, and his sound meth- , ods appealed to all the critics. Here, indeed, is an opening batsman who may well play for his country at some

future date. Fagg, who has played the club cricket for the Beverley C.C. of Canterbury, has always been an opening batsman. and it was as a small boy of nine, while watching Woolley that the call of cricket became insistent, although as a matter of fact, love of cricket runs in the family. Fagg’s father assisted Chartham M.H. and Tonbridge for ten years, and, like his son, was an opening batsman and wicketkeeper.

With Ames and W. H. V. Levett available, Fagg’s opportunities of keeping wicket for Kent are naturally very limited—but this is no hardships, as he really prefers to field in the slips.

Nowadays, nearly all county cricketers very wisely devote their winter energies to business. Fagg, for instance —and W. Cornford, of Sussex, is another —is employed in the wireless and electrical trade during the off season, but he also finds time to play football for the Kent League side, Canterbury Waverley. It is hardly necessary to add that he plays cricket for Kent under a birth qualification, having been born at Chartham, near Canterbury, on June 18, 1915.