Grahame Thomas

Grahame Thomas (born 21 March 1938, in Croydon Park, New South Wales) is a former Australian cricketer who played in eight Tests in 1965 and 1966.

Grahame Thomas
Personal information
Born (1938-03-21) 21 March 1938
Croydon Park, New South Wales, Australia
BattingRight-handed
International information
National side
Test debut (cap 235)3 March 1965 v West Indies
Last Test11 February 1966 v England
Domestic team information
YearsTeam
1957–58 to 1965–66New South Wales
Career statistics
Competition Tests First-class
Matches 8 100
Runs scored 325 5726
Batting average 29.54 40.32
100s/50s 0/3 17/23
Top score 61 229
Balls bowled 0
Wickets – 0
Bowling average – –
5 wickets in innings – –
10 wickets in match – –
Best bowling – –
Catches/stumpings 3/0 92/2
Source: Cricinfo

After several seasons in which he established a reputation as a hard-hitting batsman for New South Wales in the Sheffield Shield, he made his Test debut a few days short of his 27th birthday against the West Indies in 1965. He played all five Tests in that series without notable success, and returned to the Test side in the 1965–66 Ashes series when Bobby Simpson was injured, making two fifties in the last three Tests of the series.[1]

He toured South Africa in 1966–67 although there were rumours he may not be selected due to his mixed race heritage (he was part Aboriginal and American Indian).[2] In the final event he went on the tour[3] but was not selected for any of the Tests, and retired from first-class cricket at the end of the tour at the age of 28 in order to concentrate on his career in the printing industry.[4] He was a reliable fielder who occasionally kept wicket in first-class matches.

He played most of his Grade cricket in Sydney with Bankstown-Canterbury and was honoured in 2005 with the renaming of Bankstown's Memorial Outer Oval to the "Grahame Thomas Oval". He was made a life member of Cricket NSW in 2011.[5]

See also

References
  1. "Simpson out – chickenpox". The Canberra Times. 7 January 1966. p. 18. Retrieved 27 March 2020 – via Trove.
  2. "Sports Comment". Tribune. New South Wales, Australia. 26 January 1966. p. 12. Retrieved 27 March 2020 – via Trove.
  3. "End of road for Booth and O'Neill". The Canberra Times. 3 March 1966. p. 32. Retrieved 27 March 2020 – via Trove.
  4. The Oxford Companion to Australian Cricket, Oxford, Melbourne, 1996, pp. 527–28.
  5. "Two new Life Members of Cricket NSW". Cricket NSW. Retrieved 3 April 2018.


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