Francis McHugh

Francis Prest McHugh (born 15 November 1925,^[1] Burmantofts, Leeds, Yorkshire, England) is an English former first-class cricketer, who played three games for Yorkshire County Cricket Club in 1949,^[1] and 92 matches for Gloucestershire from 1952 to 1956.

A 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) right arm fast medium bowler,^[2] he took 276 wickets at an average of 24.84, with a best of 7 for 32 for Gloucestershire against his native county. He took five wickets in an innings fifteen times, and ten wickets in a match on four occasions.

Initially McHugh was a distinctly fast bowler who could obtain no opportunities with the presence of Coxon, Trueman and Appleyard, but upon qualifying for Gloucestershire he quickly found that his accuracy could only become of county standard when he moderated his pace. Consequently, McHugh became with George Lambert the best pace attack Gloucestershire - a county known for half a century for its near-exclusive reliance on spin bowling - had fielded to that point in the twentieth century. In 1954 he took ninety-two wickets for exactly twenty runs each, and in 1955 did almost as well with over seventy-five wickets, whilst in 1956 before an illness that was ultimately career-ending his average fell further to only nineteen runs a wicket.

McHugh was probably more noteworthy, however, for the appalling quality of his batting than for his value with the ball for Gloucestershire. His average of 2.63 is the lowest by anyone to play more than fifty first-class games,^[3] and only three times in 111 innings did he even reach double figures. It was probably the liability of his batting that caused Gloucestershire to discard him in favour of David Smith for the 1957 season: McHugh had suffered from illness during 1956,^[4] and did not play after June, but had bowled so well in his last-ever game with eleven wickets for 112 runs that he was expected to continue in 1957.

References

External links

• Cricinfo Profile
• Cricket Archive Statistics