- Massey Poyntz
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Massey Poyntz Personal information Full name Edward Stephen Massey Poyntz Born 27 November 1883
Chelmsford, Essex, EnglandDied 26 December 1934 (aged 51)
Minehead, Somerset, EnglandBatting style Right-handed batsman Bowling style Unknown Role Middle-order batsman Relations Brother, Hugh Domestic team information Years Team 1905-1919 Somerset First-class debut 1 June 1905 Somerset v Gloucestershire Last First-class 16 August 1919 Somerset v Hampshire Career statistics Competition First-class Matches 105 Runs scored 3127 Batting average 17.08 100s/50s 1/13 Top score 114 Balls bowled 401 Wickets 8 Bowling average 39.62 5 wickets in innings 1 10 wickets in match - Best bowling 5-36 Catches/stumpings 96/0 Source: CricketArchive, 22 Jun 2008 Edward Stephen Massey Poyntz, born at Chelmsford, Essex, on 27 October 1883 and died at Minehead, Somerset, on 26 December 1934, played first-class cricket for Somerset and captained the side in the seasons just before the First World War.
Contents
Early career
A right-handed middle-order batsman and a very occasional bowler of unknown style, Poyntz was the seventh child and youngest son of the Chief Constable of Essex.[1] He was educated at Haileybury College.[2] He followed his brother, Hugh Poyntz, into the Somerset side in 1905, making his debut in a remarkable match against Gloucestershire at Bath, which Somerset won after being made to follow on. Poyntz, batting at No 9 in the first innings and at No 8 in the second innings, made 32 and 60.[3] In the return match at Bristol later the same month, Poyntz was promoted to No 7 and made 89 out of Somerset's total of 169, but Gloucestershire won the match by an innings.[4]
Over the next four seasons, with Somerset a very weak side indeed, Poyntz made 30 further appearances but failed to pass 50 in any innings. Indeed, in 1907, he played in nine matches but scored only 70 runs in total, averaging less than five runs per innings. That run included being the second victim of Albert Trott's four wickets in four balls in the Middlesex match at Lord's which was Trott's benefit match and which the beneficiary finished with a further hat-trick.[5]
Somerset captain
From 1910 to 1914, Poyntz appeared in more than half the Somerset games in each season except 1912, and he captained the side in the absence of the regular captain John Daniell. In 1913 and 1914, he was the official captain. For most of this time, he had what was, for the time and in a weak side, a respectable batting average in the high teens, but he never exceeded the 89 that he scored in 1905 as his highest score for Somerset. His highest aggregate in any single season was 642 runs in 1914, at an average of 18.34.
His bowling was tried out in first-class cricket only in the 1911 season. Against Lancashire at Aigburth cricket ground in Liverpool, he was the ninth bowler used by Daniell as Somerset fielded out to a huge Lancashire total scored at the then breakneck speed of five runs an over: he took five wickets for 36 runs in 8.3 overs, but Somerset then lost the match by 423 runs.[6] He took only three other wickets in the rest of the season, and his bowling was never tried again.
In Poyntz's two seasons as Somerset captain, the county finished last and last but one of the County Championship, but in this regard his record was not much different from that of his predecessors of the past decade.[7]
Later career
Poyntz returned to first-class cricket only fleetingly after the First World War. At the end of May 1919, he played for The Army cricket team against Cambridge University in a match that was deemed first-class, and scored his only century, 114, batting at No 8 in a match where tail-enders seemed to do better than so-called established batsmen.[8] In August of the same year, he played twice again for Somerset, but those two matches were his last in first-class cricket.
Personal life
Recollections of Massey Poyntz collected in David Foot's history of Somerset county cricket are clearly affectionate, but also suggest a degree of caricature. Foot wrote that Poyntz was "a tall man who slammed his hair back with a distinctive parting in the middle". He added: "No one had an excessive regard for Massey as a cricketer. He would strike bellicose blows from the middle order, though he lacked technique and consistency. Alongside Braund, he proved himself a very passable slip fielder. His captaincy of a thoroughly poor team brought him more praise than criticism."[9]
Foot reports that fellow Somerset amateur Jack MacBryan recalled visiting Poyntz's flat in Bristol. "I was confronted by this massive coat of arms. Massey told me that he could trace his family back to William the Conqueror," MacBryan is quoted as saying.[9] A picture of the Somerset team at Weston-super-Mare in 1919 in the same book shows cricketers posed in a semicircle in front of the boundary rope: Poyntz is distinguished from the others, because he is holding a small dog.
References
- ^ "Person Page 25084, Poyntz". www.thepeerage.com. http://www.thepeerage.com/p25084.htm#i250837. Retrieved 2008-06-21.
- ^ "Deaths in 1934". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (1935 ed.). John Wisden & Co. p. p271.
- ^ "Somerset v Gloucestershire". www.cricketarchive.com. 1905-06-01. http://www.cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/6/6716.html. Retrieved 2008-06-21.
- ^ "Gloucestershire v Somerset". www.cricketarchive.com. 1905-06-26. http://www.cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/6/6760.html. Retrieved 2008-06-21.
- ^ "Middlesex v Somerset". www.cricketarchive.com. 1907-05-20. http://www.cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/7/7245.html. Retrieved 2008-06-21.
- ^ "Lancashire v Somerset". www.cricketarchive.com. 1911-06-01. http://www.cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/8/8411.html. Retrieved 2008-06-21.
- ^ E. W. Swanton, ed. Barclays World of Cricket (1986 ed.). Willow Books. p. p394.
- ^ "Cambridge University v The Army". www.cricketarchive.com. 1919-05-29. http://www.cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/9/9538.html. Retrieved 2008-06-21.
- ^ a b David Foot. Sunshine, Sixes and Cider: A History of Somerset Cricket (1986 ed.). David & Charles. p. p95. ISBN 0 7153 8890 8.
Sporting positions Preceded by
John DaniellSomerset County Cricket Captain
1913–1914Succeeded by
John DaniellCategories:- 1883 births
- 1934 deaths
- English cricketers
- Somerset cricketers
- Somerset cricket captains
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