David Steele

David Aubrey Steele (3 June 1869 — 25 March 1935) was an English cricketer who played first-class cricket for Hampshire from 1886 to 1906, covering both their period as a second-class county and their readmittance to first-class cricket in 1894, in which they played in the County Championship from 1895. A bowling all-rounder, he took 135 wickets and scored over 3,400 runs from 164 first-class appearances.

Cricket career Steele was born in Southampton in June 1869. A professional cricketer, he began playing for Hampshire in 1886, when Hampshire held second-class status. He played extensively for Hampshire during their period as a second-class county, remaining with Hampshire when the county regained its first-class status in 1894, ready for admission to the County Championship in 1895. He did not immediately make his first-class debut in the 1895 County Championship, but had to wait nearly three months into the season until he played against Leicestershire at Leicester, with Steele featuring three times in the County Championship that season. He made sixteen appearances in the 1896 County Championship, and played against the touring Australians at Southampton. whilst with his slow bowling he took 23 wickets at a bowling average of 30.60. He made twenty first-class appearances in 1897, scoring 390 runs at an average of 13.92, He was known to sometimes share wicket-keeping duties with Teddy Wynyard and Charles Robson, and did so for Wynyard against Warwickshire in 1897, when all eleven Hampshire players bowled. Whilst his tally of wickets totalled 22 in 1899, his bowling average increased to 44.09. whilst in 1901 he took nine wickets. In the field, he took 132 catches and made five stumpings when deputising as wicket-keeper. Wisden summaised that "he never quite realised expectations". Steele died in Caterham on 25 March 1935.