Bob Pountain
- Abdullah Shafique
- Agha Salman
- Babar Azam
- Fakhar Zaman
- Haris Rauf
- Iftikhar Ahmed
- Imam-ul-Haq
- Mohammad Rizwan
- Shadab Khan
- Shaheen Shah Afridi
Alphabetically sorted top ten of players who have played the most matches across formats in the last 12 months
Full Name
Francis Reginald Pountain
Born
April 23, 1941, Eastleigh, Hampshire
Died
January 19, 2007 (aged 65y 271d)
Batting Style
Right hand Bat
Bowling Style
Right arm Medium
TEAMS
Bob Pountain enjoyed his happiest day as a Sussex cricketer some four decades after his career ended. Despite making 76 first-class appearances this powerful allrounder was never capped and felt hard done by. He seldom visited Hove and never attended the old players' reunions. But he was delighted to receive belated recognition in 2004 when Sussex presented a numbered cap to each of their former players. "I've finally achieved my lifetime's ambition," he said.
Pountain made his debut in 1960, a week after his 19th birthday, when he contributed 16 to a stand of 128 with Graham Cooper for the ninth wicket against Warwickshire. He appeared twice more that season and established himself in 1961 with 384 runs and 35 wickets with his deceptive right-arm seamers. He never made more first-class appearances in a season than he did that year (21). Pountain had trouble with the scales and at one stage cut his run-up to conserve energy. In the winter of 1963, when he should have been felling trees for the former Surrey captain Stuart Surridge, he was told to go on a crash diet and lost two-and-a-half stone, most of it pedalling away on a static bike in the old Hove General Hospital. Jack Arlidge, the doyen of the Hove press box, nicknamed him 'Man-Mountain Pountain'. 'Bob' remains a mystery.
Things might have been different had he scored a century. He got to 96 at Glastonbury against Somerset in 1964 but missed out. "I got a bit over-anxious," he later confided. He loved trying to get under the skin of opponents but occasionally the joke was on him. He stuttered when he got over-excited and his leg-before appeals would cause much mirth in the deckchairs.
Pountain played in two Gillette Cup semi-finals but never made it to Lord's. He later became a union rep when he worked for the Post Office, a job to which he was well suited. He retired to Woodingdean in Sussex and bravely fought cancer. He leaves a wife and son.
Bruce Talbot, The Wisden Cricketer
Bob Pountain Career Stats
Batting & Fielding
Format | Mat | Inns | NO | Runs | HS | Ave | 100s | 50s | Ct | St |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
FC | 76 | 119 | 16 | 1920 | 96 | 18.64 | 0 | - | 43 | 0 |
List A | 6 | 5 | 1 | 27 | 15* | 6.75 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Bowling
Format | Mat | Balls | Runs | Wkts | BBI | BBM | Ave | Econ | SR | 4w | 5w | 10w |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
FC | 76 | 5889 | 3054 | 86 | 5/91 | - | 35.51 | 3.11 | 68.4 | - | 1 | 0 |
List A | 6 | 171 | 149 | 3 | 2/56 | 2/56 | 49.66 | 5.22 | 57.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Recent Matches of Bob Pountain
Match | Bat | Bowl | Date | Ground | Format |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sussex vs Australians | 1 | 0/69 | 14-Sep-1964 | Hove | List A |
Sussex vs Surrey | 0 | 1/19 | 29-Jul-1964 | Hove | List A |
Sussex vs Australians | 15 & 25 | -- | 15-Jul-1964 | Hove | FC |
Sussex vs Somerset | 11 | -- | 24-Jun-1964 | Taunton | List A |
Sussex vs Durham | -- | -- | 27-May-1964 | Hove | List A |