Stephen Jefferies

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stephen Jefferies (born December 8, 1959) was a South African cricketer. He was a left-handed batsman and a left-arm medium-fast bowler. Jefferies' career centred around his home country of South Africa, though in 1982 he briefly moved to England, subsequently playing for Derbyshire. He made his debut for Derbyshire in July of that year against a team of Pakistanis, and swiftly moved back to South Africa in order to be eligible to play in the SAB Currie Cup during the 1982/83 season.

Jefferies' Western Province team, which included Test players Peter Kirsten, Graham Gooch and John Emburey amongst others, drew the Currie Cup final that season, but lost on countback, having had a less successful qualifying record. Jefferies was proclaimed one of five South African Cricket Annual Cricketers of the Year in 1982.

He moved back to England in April 1983, immediately following yet another Castle Currie Cup final appearance, this time a defeat by Transvaal, in order to play for Lancashire, and, during a match in June of that year, took 8/46, the second highest individual innings total of the season, and 11/95 in the match, one of the highest match-returns.

In December 1987 he took all ten wickets in the second innings a Castle Currie Cup game for Western Province against Orange Free State, the only man to do so in that season's competition.^[1]

Jefferies returned to England for 1988, playing for Hampshire, who finished third-bottom of the 1988 County Championship, the year's highlight being another of Jefferies' career total of four ten-wicket match hauls. He continued to play for Western Province and Hampshire until 1992. Jefferies' career concluded in 1993 when he played for Boland B in the 1993/4 UCB Bowl tournament.