Cris Tinley

Robert Crispin Tinley (25 October 1830 – 11 December 1900) was an English cricket professional who played during the middle of the 19th century. In a career that spanned from 1847 to 1874, he was a noted underarm bowler who represented the Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club, debuting with the club aged 16. As a cricketer, he appeared in 117 matches, scoring over 2,000 runs and taking over 300 wickets. He represented the North of England cricket team in the regular North v South fixture over a dozen times. Tinley had a long association with the All England Eleven (AEE), which usually played "odds" matches, in which he recorded numerous instances of ten or more wickets in an innings. As a participant in the second English cricket tour of Australia in 1864, Tinley was their leading wicket-taker. After his playing career, he ran a Burton-on-Trent inn.

Early life and career Tinley was born in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, on 25 October 1830. Part of a cricketing family, he had two older brothers, Francis and Vincent, that also played.

He debuted with Nottinghamshire on 9 August 1847 in a match against England (i.e., the "rest" of England) that was played as a benefit for Thomas Barker. Aged 16 and 288 days, he was the youngest player to represent Nottinghamshire at the time, a distinction he held for 177 years until Farhan Ahmed debuted at an age three months younger in 2024. In Tinley's debut match, he took six total wickets, three in both innings, while scoring 14 total runs as a batter. including his first appearance for the North in the regular North v South match. After the 1853 season, Tinley's tenure in Burton-on-Trent ended, and he would spend much of the next two decades playing most prominently with Nottinghamshire and with William Clarke's All England Eleven. He recorded his first five-wicket haul for the team in 1859, one of eleven Tinley would have with them. Tinley had a ten-wicket haul in three of his matches with the club. Over his entire career with Nottinghamshire, he took 138 wickets with a 14.99 bowling average. at the crease, Tinley recorded his two best batting totals: 53 runs in a 1858 match versus the South of England and 56 runs in a 1862 match against Surrey. As with his Nottinghamshire tenure, he recorded his best innings as a bowler in the same match; taking on Surrey in 1860, he took twelve total wickets through a pair of six-wicket hauls, yielding 30 runs in the first innings for his innings-best performance. Overall, he took 82 wickets as a member of the North team. In these matches, Tinley's bowling was even more successful and resulted in two seasons, 1860 and 1862, where he took over 300 wickets in a season for the AEE. In a match against an eighteen-man team representing Hallam at Hyde Park, Tinley took all seventeen wickets available in the second innings, while a match against Birmingham at Small Heath saw Tinley make twelve catches in a match. The tour mostly featured odds matches in which local teams of 22 played against English elevens, with the tour's sole eleven-a-side match taking place on 5 March 1864. The seven wickets were a match high, but it ultimately came in a losing effort to Anderson's team. Tinley did not bowl in the last of these three matches, Tinley's team won the match, in which he took 14 wickets, including an eight-wicket haul in the second innings. His final match as an umpire took place in 1877, though he would make a final appearance as an umpire in 1880 to umpire a match in Burton-on-Trent featuring the United South of England Eleven.

Tinley was the recipient of two benefit matches, one in 1861 in an AEE match versus his former Burton-on-Trent team (which Tinley rejoined to play against the AEE on that occasion), and another in a North v South match in 1875, taking place a year after his playing career ended. A testimonial in Tinley's honour was also granted to him in 1891 by Burton-on-Trent. In retirement, he ran Burton-on-Trent's Royal Oak Inn. After being ill for several years, Tinley died on 11 December 1900.