Arthur Fielder

Arthur Fielder (19 July 1877 – 30 August 1949) was an English cricketer who played as a fast bowler for Kent County Cricket Club and the England cricket team from 1900 to 1914. He played a major role in Kent's four County Championship wins in the years before World War I and toured Australia twice with the England team, making six Test match appearances. He was chosen as one of Wisden's Cricketers of the Year in 1907.

Early life Fielder was born at Plaxtol, on 19 July 1877. He grew up the son of a farm bailiff and worked on a hop farm in his early years. In 1897, he joined Kent's newly established Tonbridge nursery at the Angel Ground under Captain William McCanlis. This was a successful player development programme which allowed young professional cricketers to be trained and developed the nucleus of the Kent teams of the early 20th century. Fielder also spent a year on the ground staff at the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in 1904. He went wicketless and was out without scoring in the match. He went on to play 249 first-class matches, taking 1,277 wickets at an average of 21.02 and featured in four County Championship winning teams for his County.

Fielder broke into the Kent team properly in 1903, replacing fast bowler Bill Bradley in the First XI and showing what Wisden called "capital form". After this successful season Fielder was selected for the England cricket team for the tour of Australia in 1903–04.

After a poor 1905 season, During the season he became the first man to take all 10 wickets in an innings in the Gentlemen v Players match at Lord's, taking 10/90 in the first innings and 14 wickets overall in the match.

Fielder was selected to tour Australia again in 1907–08 with England. He played in the first four Tests on the tour, taking 25 wickets at 25.08, England's second leading Test wicket taker on the tour. He took 6/82 in a narrow defeat at Sydney in the first Test and scored 18 runs in a crucial last wicket partnership in the final innings of the second Test at Melbourne as England won by one wicket.

Whilst strictly a tail-end batsman, The pair came together when Kent were still 40 behind Worcestershire's first innings of 360 and raised Kent's total to 555. Kent went on to win by an innings. Woolley had retired hurt earlier in the innings after being hit in the mouth by a ball from Ted Arnold. He was part of the Kent Championship winning teams of 1909, 1910 and 1913. World War I ended Fielder's first-class career although he did play two non-first-class matches for the MCC after the war.

Style of play Fielder was described by Wisden in 1907 as being "quite modern in his methods, keeping the ball for the most part well outside the off-stump". He also used deliveries which made the ball break back into the batsman and is described, again by Wisden in 1907, as bowling at a "fine pace".

Personal life and death In 1909, Fielder married Annie Mitchell in Tonbridge, and they had one son. Fielder was too old to serve in the military during World War I, so he joined the Kent Constabulary as a auxiliary policeman. He died at St Thomas' Hospital in London on 30 August 1949, aged 72.