William Henry Noel Ferguson (6 December 1927 in Downpatrick

Downpatrick

Downpatrick is a medium-sized town about 33 km south of Belfast in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is the county town of Down with a rich history and strong connection to Saint Patrick. It had a population of 10,316 at the 2001 Census...

, County Down

County Down

-Cities:*Belfast *Newry -Large towns:*Dundonald*Newtownards*Bangor-Medium towns:...

 – 31 October 2007 ) usually known as Noel Ferguson was an Irish 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.

A left-handed batsman and right-arm medium-pace

Fast bowling

Fast bowling, sometimes known as pace bowling, is one of the two main approaches to bowling in the sport of cricket. The other is spin bowling...

 bowler, he made his debut for the Ireland cricket team in June 1951 against Scotland in 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...

 match. He did not play for the Irish team again until June 1962, when he returned to the side for another first-class game against the Combined Services cricket team

Combined Services cricket team

The Combined Services cricket team represents the British armed forces. The team played at first-class level in England for more than forty years in the mid-twentieth century. Their first first-class match was against Gentlemen of England at Lord's in 1920, while their last was against Oxford...

. He remained in the team for the next two years, playing ten matches in all, his last match coming against the MCC

Marylebone Cricket Club

Marylebone Cricket Club is a cricket club in London founded in 1787. Its influence and longevity now witness it as a private members' club dedicated to the development of cricket. It owns, and is based at, Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London NW8. MCC was formerly the governing body of...

 in September 1964.

Of his matches for Ireland, five had first-class status. In all matches for Ireland, he scored 180 runs

Run (cricket)

In the sport of cricket, a run is the basic unit of scoring. Runs are scored by a batsman, and the aggregate of the scores of a team's batsmen constitutes the team's score. A batsman scoring 50 or 100 runs , or any higher multiple of 50 runs, is considered a particular achievement...

 at an average of 12.86 with a top score of 37 against Scotland in July 1963. He took 27 wickets at an average

Bowling average

Bowling average is a statistic measuring the performance of bowlers in the sport of cricket.A bowler's bowling average is defined as the total number of runs conceded by the bowlers divided by the number of wickets taken by the bowler, so the lower the average the better. It is similar to earned...

of 21.15, with best bowling of 6/37 against Scotland in July 1962.