Maurice Tate

Maurice William Tate (30 May 1895 – 18 May 1956) was an English cricketer of the 1920s and 1930s and the leader of England's Test bowling attack for a long time during this period. He was also the first Sussex cricketer to take a wicket with his first ball in Test cricket.

The son of Sussex off spinner Fred Tate and nicknamed "Chubby", Maurice began his career for Sussex as a hard-hitting batsman and spin bowler with one match in 1912. He played a few matches in 1913 and 1914, but established himself as a batsman in 1919 by scoring over a thousand runs for the first of eleven consecutive seasons. In the following two years, Tate's batting developed further with a double hundred against Northamptonshire in 1921 representing his highest first-class score. However, his bowling remained secondary throughout this period.

In 1922 Tate had, aided by some very poor batting sides, enjoyed more success as a bowler than in previous years. However, in a famous incident at practice with his captain Arthur Gilligan, he bowled a faster ball, and it scattered the stumps.

This led to the quote "Maurice, you must change your style of bowling immediately". From then on Tate developed as a fast-medium bowler and has been described as a founder of modern seam bowling.