Arthur Edward Fagg was an English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

er, who played for Kent

Kent County Cricket Club

Kent County Cricket Club is one of the 18 first class county county cricket clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the county of Kent...

 and England

English cricket team

The England and Wales cricket team is a cricket team which represents England and Wales. Until 1992 it also represented Scotland. Since 1 January 1997 it has been governed by the England and Wales Cricket Board , having been previously governed by Marylebone Cricket Club from 1903 until the end...

.

A right-handed opening batsman who first played for Kent at the age of 17, Fagg was a Test match

Test cricket

Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...

 player at 21 against India

Indian cricket team

The Indian cricket team is the national cricket team of India. Governed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India , it is a full member of the International Cricket Council with Test and One Day International status....

 in 1936. But he caught rheumatic fever

Rheumatic fever

Rheumatic fever is an inflammatory disease that occurs following a Streptococcus pyogenes infection, such as strep throat or scarlet fever. Believed to be caused by antibody cross-reactivity that can involve the heart, joints, skin, and brain, the illness typically develops two to three weeks after...

 on the tour of Australia the following winter, and missed the whole of the 1937 season.

The evidence was strong in 1938 that Fagg was back to his best form. He set a first-class

First-class cricket

First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 world record playing for Kent against Essex

Essex County Cricket Club

Essex County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Essex. Its limited overs team is called the Essex Eagles, their team colours this season are blue.The club plays most of its home games...

 at Colchester

Colchester

Colchester is an historic town and the largest settlement within the borough of Colchester in Essex, England.At the time of the census in 2001, it had a population of 104,390. However, the population is rapidly increasing, and has been named as one of Britain's fastest growing towns. As the...

, scoring 244 in the first innings and an undefeated 202 in the second innings in a drawn match, becoming the only batsman in first-class cricket history to score double centuries in both innings of a match. But 1938 was a year of record-breaking, and the young Leonard Hutton cemented his place as England's first choice opener with his 364 against the Australians

Australian cricket team

The Australian cricket team is the national cricket team of Australia. It is the joint oldest team in Test cricket, having played in the first Test match in 1877...

 at The Oval

The Oval

The Kia Oval, still commonly referred to by its original name of The Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, in the London Borough of Lambeth. In the past it was also sometimes called the Kennington Oval...

.

Fagg played only one more Test, though he remained a consistent scorer in county cricket until the mid 1950s. In all, he scored 58 centuries and more than 25,000 runs.

After retirement, he became a well-known cricket umpire

Umpire (cricket)

In cricket, an umpire is a person who has the authority to make judgements on the cricket field, according to the Laws of Cricket...

, officiating in eighteen Test matches and seven One Day Internationals. He created a sensation at Edgbaston

Edgbaston Cricket Ground

Edgbaston Cricket Ground, also known as the County Ground or Edgbaston Stadium, is a cricket ground in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham, England...

 in 1973, by refusing to take the field after the West Indies team disputed one of his decisions.