| Personal information | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | John Dowie Harcombe | |||
| Born | 13 March 1883 Cape Town, Cape Province, South Africa |
|||
| Died | 19 July 1954 (aged 71) Taunton, Somerset, England |
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| Batting style | Right-handed | |||
| Bowling style | Right-arm slow | |||
| Role | All-rounder | |||
| Domestic team information | ||||
| Years | Team | |||
| 1905–19 | Somerset | |||
| First-class cricket debut | 19 June 1905 Somerset v Lancashire | |||
| Last First-class cricket | 10 June 1919 Somerset v Gloucestershire | |||
| Career statistics | ||||
| Competition | First-class | |||
| Matches | 7 | |||
| Runs scored | 76 | |||
| Batting average | 7.60 | |||
| 100s/50s | –/– | |||
| Top score | 29 | |||
| Balls bowled | 144 | |||
| Wickets | 3 | |||
| Bowling average | 44.00 | |||
| 5 wickets in innings | – | |||
| 10 wickets in match | – | |||
| Best bowling | 3/51 | |||
| Catches/stumpings | 2/– | |||
| Source: CricketArchive, 20 March 2011 | ||||
John Dowie Harcombe (13 March 1883 – 19 July 1954) played first-class cricket for Somerset in seven matches stretched across the years from 1905 to 1919.[1] He was born at Cape Town in South Africa and died at Taunton, Somerset.
Harcombe was a right-handed lower-order batsman and a right-arm slow bowler. He played for Somerset in three matches in 1905, one more in 1914 and then a final three in 1919. He had limited success both as a batsman and as a bowler. His only wickets were taken in his very first match, against Lancashire in 1905.[2] As a batsman he reached double figures only twice in a dozen innings and his highest score was 29, made batting at No 11 in his second first-class match, against Kent in 1905.[3] Harcombe settled in Kenya and played minor cricket there for the Settlers side in the 1920s and 1930s.[4]
Harcombe enlisted as a soldier with the Somerset Light Infantry in the First World War and was a sergeant when he was commissioned in 1916 as a temporary second lieutenant and transferred to the Devonshire Regiment.[5] Earlier in the same year he had been awarded the Military Medal.[6] In 1917 he was granted the rank of acting captain while serving as an adjutant to the Devonshire Regiment.[7] He was allowed to retain the rank of captain when discharged as a second lieutenant in February 1919.[8]