Claude Ashton - Cricket Career

Cricket Career

Ashton first played for the University Cricket eleven in May 1921, and in 1921 he made 557 runs for the university at an average of 46.41. His best scores were 101 not out off the Surrey bowlers at the Oval and with 98 against M.C.C. at Lord's. In the match against Oxford University in July, he played alongside his brothers Gilbert (captain) and Hubert making 48 runs (with Hubert scoring 118) as Cambridge won by an innings and 24 runs.

After the varsity match, Claude joined Hubert at Essex with only modest success, scoring 240 at an average of 18.46. With one appearance for the England XI against Australia, his aggregate for the season was 798 at an average of 29.55.

In July 1922, he again joined Hubert (now captain) in the varsity match which was won by an innings and 100 runs, after Hubert (on 90) (with Percy Chapman on 102) declared at 403 for four wickets. As a result Claude was unable to bat and only bowled three overs without claiming a wicket. Rain interfered with many matches in 1922 but Claude’s aggregate for the University and Essex for the year was 797 runs, average 28.46. His best performance came in early August against Middlesex, when he scored 110 not out in a drawn match.

For 1923, he succeeded his two elder brothers as captain of Cambridge University, but was unable to emulate his brothers in the varsity match. Oxford batted all the first day, and during the night a severe thunderstorm with a deluge of rain completely altered the conditions at Lord's, with the result that Cambridge were dismissed twice and beaten on the Tuesday by an innings and 227 runs, the most overwhelming defeat in the whole series of University matches and the three most decisive results to occur consecutively. Claude thus ended his time with the university in rather dismal circumstances.

In the 1923 season as a whole, however, he amassed 916 runs at an average of 24.75, and claimed 50 wickets with his medium-pace bowling, together with 21 catches.

Over the next few years, his business commitments restricted his cricket and between 1930 and 1933 he played no first class cricket. After a five year absence from first class cricket, he returned for Essex at the end of May 1934 in a match against Kent at Brentwood. In an astonishing match Kent scored 803 for four wickets, with Bill Ashdown scoring 332, Frank Woolley 172 and Les Ames 202 n.o. (185 runs were scored off Ashton’s 31 overs). In reply, Essex managed 408 in the first innings, with centuries from Dudley Pope and Jack O’Connor, while Ashton could only contribute 11. Following on, Essex were bowled out for 203, with Ashton making 71 not out.

A few days later, he made his highest first class score of 118 against Surrey (again at Brentwood), helping O'Connor put on 287 for the fifth wicket, a then Essex record, in a total of 570, which brought victory by an innings and 192. The stand occupied only two hours twenty minutes, and the fourth hundred of the innings came in 38 minutes. The combined total of runs scored in these two matches was 2362. In six games for Essex in 1934, Ashton scored 416 runs and headed the averages with 59.42.

His fourth and final century came against Gloucestershire in July 1936, when he scored 100 in a drawn match, thereby passing a career total of 4500 runs.

His first class cricket career spanned 18 years from 1921 to 1938 during which he scored an aggregate of 4723 runs at an average of 24.98, took 139 wickets as a bowler, and held 113 catches.