Cricket Career
In cricket, Marples was a wicket-keeper and right-handed batsman. Having represented the Derbyshire team in the Second XI Championship as early as 1982, Marples made his debut County Championship appearance in July 1985 against Yorkshire. He finished the game with four catches and played all ten subsequent fixtures in the competition to the end of the season. In addition, Marples was part of Derbyshire's Asda Challenge Trophy winning side.
He played fifteen further First-class cricket matches for the club in 1986, a season during which Derbyshire used three different players in the wicket-keeper role, with Bernie Maher, who was recognised as a stronger batsman, eventually reclaiming the position. Marples was not offered a new contract thereafter.
However, Marples stayed on to play several games with the Second XI in 1987, and returned to play one Second XI game in 1993, an almost actionless three-day match, against Leicestershire.
Throughout the two seasons in which he was a first-team player, Marples was a tail-end batsman alongside Danish mainstay Ole Mortensen and was often unlucky to find himself out of action as a strike partner.
Read more about this topic: Chris Marples
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