'Reginald Heber Moss' (
24 February 1868 -
19 March 1956) was an
English cricketer: a right-handed batsman and a right-arm bowler of both fast and medium pace. He holds the distinction of being the oldest cricketer to appear in the
County Championship.
Born in
Huyton,
Liverpool, Moss played most of his
first-class cricket for
Oxford University, appearing 13 times between
1887 and
1890; he won a
blue in
1889. His first match in 1887 was against
Lancashire, for whom he had played a handful of minor games before going up to Oxford, while his best bowling performance came in his final university game, when he took 4-9 against
Sussex.
His interest in
athletics prevented Moss from appearing more often; as an example, he missed the
1889 Varsity Match but came third against
Cambridge in the
shot put. After leaving Oxford, Moss played two matches in the
1893 season: an ineffective performance against Lancashire for
MCC at
Lord's (he scored 3 and 4 and did not bowl or take a catch), and an only marginally more productive appearance for Liverpool and District against the touring
Australians, in which he took 0-23 and made 13 in an innings defeat.
Moss was to make only one further appearance, for
Worcestershire, but extraordinarily this came in the
1925 County Championship, nearly 32 years after his previous first-class game when Moss was 57. Batting at number 11, he made 2 and 0 and was "an easy victim" according to the
The Times [1] but he fared better in the field, picking up the wicket of
Gloucestershire opener
Michael Green and holding two catches.
He died at the age of 88 in
Bridport,
Dorset.
External links
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Statistical summary from
CricketArchive