Phil Newport
Encyclopedia
Philip John Newport is a former English
cricket
er, who played primarily as a seam
and swing bowler
. Newport was a stalwart of Worcestershire County Cricket Club
for most of the 1980s and 1990s, and played a key part in the county's triumphs in the late 1980s. Newport played in three Tests
for England in 1988.
debut against the touring Pakistanis
at New Road
in July of that year. However, he had an unpromising beginning to his career at this level, failing to take a wicket and seeing his eleven overs costing 64 runs as the tourists scored 467 for 4 declared on their way to an innings victory. He returned to the Second XI for a while, but was then called up for the local derby with Warwickshire
at Edgbaston
. In this game he took the wicket of Dennis Amiss
; picking up another in the second innings.
Slowly Newport forced himself into contention for a regular spot in the county side, and in 1986 he made the breakthrough, winning his county cap and taking five wickets in an innings on five occasions, on his way to a total haul of 85 victims. He also scored his maiden first-class fifty in this season, the first of 22 he was to make in his career. Although he never managed to convert one of these into a century, his top score being 98 against the New Zealanders
at Worcester in 1990.
Newport had a mediocre 1987 season in England, his first-class batting average of over 41 that year being artificially inflated by twelve not-outs in twenty five innings. He had a happier time in one-day cricket
, taking 34 wickets at 16.70, including his career-best one-day analysis of 5-22. That winter he went to play for Boland
in South Africa
n domestic cricket, and was reasonably successful, averaging 25 with the bat and 19 with the ball.
This set him up for the 1988 English season, and he put in some eye-catching performances. These included ten wickets in the match against Somerset
, which helped Worcestershire to an innings victory; a further nine against Lancashire
in early June; and in the next match, his career-best bowling figures of 8-52 in a rain-affected match against Middlesex
. He also took nine wickets against a powerful Essex
team containing Graham Gooch
and Allan Border
, picking up Border's wicket in both innings.
This fine run of form brought Newport a place in the England
team for the final Test match
of the summer, against Sri Lanka
in August. He acquitted himself well, taking 7-164 in the match, to help propel England to a comfortable seven-wicket victory, but was not selected for the (later cancelled) winter tour of India. He could console himself, however, with 93 first-class wickets, the best haul of his career, and - more significantly - Worcestershire's first County Championship
title since 1974.
1989 started promisingly for Newport, with eleven wickets in Worcestershire's low-scoring win over the Australians
, and he was named in the team for the First Test. His second taste of cricket at this level, however, was a chastening experience, as Steve Waugh
- on his first tour of England and on his way to 177 not out - took a liking to Newport's seamers, and the Worcestershire bowler ended the first innings with figures of 2-153. He had no chance to make amends, being allowed only five overs in Australia's second innings, and was dropped for the Second Test of England's painful Ashes
summer. Again, the domestic game was his salvation as Worcestershire retained their Championship.
Newport's England career ran to only one more match. He was called up for the 1990/91 Perth
Test while with the A team in Sri Lanka
as a replacement for the injured Angus Fraser
. He made 40 not out in a lost cause, coming to the crease with England 118 for 6, but did not impress with the ball, taking only one wicket and bowling six no-balls in his fourteen overs. He never played for England again, after a career lasting just three Tests and without a One Day International to his name.
He spent another winter in South Africa, this time with Northern Transvaal, in 1992/93, but apart from that the remainder of Newport's career was spent in familiar surroundings with Worcestershire. He reached 50 wickets in every season from 1991 to 1995, but after that he gradually faded from first-team contention, although he did manage one last hurrah in 1997, when he took 7-37 in a drawn game against Leicestershire
. The writing was on the wall, however, and Newport retired after the 1999 season, bowing out rather quietly with a National League
game in which he did not bat or take a wicket, with only a single catch.
Newport is currently a teacher and cricket coach at the Royal Grammar School Worcester
.
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 primarily as a seam
Seam bowling
Seam bowling is a phrase used for a bowling technique in cricket whereby the ball is deliberately bowled on to its seam, to cause a random deviation. Practitioners are known as seam bowlers or seamers....
and swing bowler
Swing bowling
Swing bowling is a technique used for bowling in the sport of cricket. Practitioners are known as swing bowlers. Swing bowling is generally classed as a subtype of fast bowling.-Physics of swing bowling:...
. Newport was a stalwart of Worcestershire County Cricket Club
Worcestershire County Cricket Club
Worcestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Worcestershire...
for most of the 1980s and 1990s, and played a key part in the county's triumphs in the late 1980s. Newport played in three Tests
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...
for England in 1988.
Life and career
After playing a number of times for Worcestershire's Second XI in 1982, Newport made his first-classFirst-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...
debut against the touring Pakistanis
Pakistani cricket team in England in 1982
The Pakistan cricket team toured England in the 1982 season to play a three-match Test series against England.England won the series 2-1 with no matches drawn.-Test series summary:* – England won by 113 runs...
at New Road
New Road, Worcester
New Road, Worcester, England, has been the home cricket ground of Worcestershire County Cricket Club since 1896. Immediately to the northwest is a road called New Road, part of the A44, hence the name.- Overview :...
in July of that year. However, he had an unpromising beginning to his career at this level, failing to take a wicket and seeing his eleven overs costing 64 runs as the tourists scored 467 for 4 declared on their way to an innings victory. He returned to the Second XI for a while, but was then called up for the local derby with Warwickshire
Warwickshire County Cricket Club
Warwickshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Warwickshire. Its limited overs team is called the Warwickshire Bears. Their kit colours are black and gold and the shirt sponsor...
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 this game he took the wicket of Dennis Amiss
Dennis Amiss
Dennis Leslie Amiss MBE was an English cricketer and cricket administrator.Amiss suffered a serious back injury whilst playing soccer in his teenage years, which entailed him starting each day of his sporting life undergoing stretching routines to loosen up.He played cricket for both Warwickshire...
; picking up another in the second innings.
Slowly Newport forced himself into contention for a regular spot in the county side, and in 1986 he made the breakthrough, winning his county cap and taking five wickets in an innings on five occasions, on his way to a total haul of 85 victims. He also scored his maiden first-class fifty in this season, the first of 22 he was to make in his career. Although he never managed to convert one of these into a century, his top score being 98 against the New Zealanders
New Zealand cricket team
The New Zealand cricket team, nicknamed the Black Caps, are the national cricket team representing New Zealand. They played their first in 1930 against England in Christchurch, New Zealand, becoming the fifth country to play Test cricket. It took the team until 1955–56 to win a Test, against the...
at Worcester in 1990.
Newport had a mediocre 1987 season in England, his first-class batting average of over 41 that year being artificially inflated by twelve not-outs in twenty five innings. He had a happier time in one-day cricket
One-day cricket
Limited overs cricket, also known as one-day cricket and in a slightly different context as List A cricket, is a version of the sport of cricket in which a match is generally completed in one day, whereas Test and first-class matches can take up to five days to complete...
, taking 34 wickets at 16.70, including his career-best one-day analysis of 5-22. That winter he went to play for Boland
Boland
Boland is a Irish surname . It may refer to:-People:Boland is a surname of Irish origin. The name refers to:*Adam Boland , Australian television personality...
in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
n domestic cricket, and was reasonably successful, averaging 25 with the bat and 19 with the ball.
This set him up for the 1988 English season, and he put in some eye-catching performances. These included ten wickets in the match against Somerset
Somerset County Cricket Club
Somerset County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Somerset...
, which helped Worcestershire to an innings victory; a further nine against Lancashire
Lancashire County Cricket Club
Lancashire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Lancashire in cricket's County Championship. The club was founded in 1864 as a successor to Manchester Cricket Club and has played at Old Trafford since then...
in early June; and in the next match, his career-best bowling figures of 8-52 in a rain-affected match against Middlesex
Middlesex County Cricket Club
Middlesex County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Middlesex. It was announced in February 2009 that Middlesex changed their limited overs name from the Middlesex Crusaders, to the...
. He also took nine wickets against a powerful 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...
team containing Graham Gooch
Graham Gooch
Graham Alan Gooch OBE DL is a former cricketer who captained Essex and England. He was one of the most successful international batsmen of his generation, and through a career spanning from 1973 until 2000, he became the most prolific run scorer of all time with 67,057 runs...
and Allan Border
Allan Border
Allan Robert Border AO is a former Australian cricketer. A batsman, Border was for many years the captain of the Australian team. His playing nickname was "A.B.". He played 156 Test matches in his career, a record until it was passed by fellow Australian Steve Waugh...
, picking up Border's wicket in both innings.
This fine run of form brought Newport a place in the 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...
team for the final 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...
of the summer, against Sri Lanka
Sri Lankan cricket team
The Sri Lankan cricket team is the national cricket team of Sri Lanka. The team first played international cricket in 1926–27, and were later awarded Test status in 1981, which made Sri Lanka the eighth Test cricket playing nation...
in August. He acquitted himself well, taking 7-164 in the match, to help propel England to a comfortable seven-wicket victory, but was not selected for the (later cancelled) winter tour of India. He could console himself, however, with 93 first-class wickets, the best haul of his career, and - more significantly - Worcestershire's first County Championship
County Championship
The County Championship is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales...
title since 1974.
1989 started promisingly for Newport, with eleven wickets in Worcestershire's low-scoring win over 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...
, and he was named in the team for the First Test. His second taste of cricket at this level, however, was a chastening experience, as Steve Waugh
Steve Waugh
Stephen Rodger "Steve" Waugh, AO is a former Australian cricketer and fraternal twin of cricketer Mark Waugh. A right-handed batsman, he was also a successful medium-pace bowler...
- on his first tour of England and on his way to 177 not out - took a liking to Newport's seamers, and the Worcestershire bowler ended the first innings with figures of 2-153. He had no chance to make amends, being allowed only five overs in Australia's second innings, and was dropped for the Second Test of England's painful Ashes
The Ashes
The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. It is one of the most celebrated rivalries in international cricket and dates back to 1882. It is currently played biennially, alternately in the United Kingdom and Australia. Cricket being a summer sport, and the venues...
summer. Again, the domestic game was his salvation as Worcestershire retained their Championship.
Newport's England career ran to only one more match. He was called up for the 1990/91 Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
Test while with the A team in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
as a replacement for the injured Angus Fraser
Angus Fraser
Angus Robert Charles Fraser is the current Managing Director of Cricket of Middlesex County Cricket Club, and a former English cricketer and journalist....
. He made 40 not out in a lost cause, coming to the crease with England 118 for 6, but did not impress with the ball, taking only one wicket and bowling six no-balls in his fourteen overs. He never played for England again, after a career lasting just three Tests and without a One Day International to his name.
He spent another winter in South Africa, this time with Northern Transvaal, in 1992/93, but apart from that the remainder of Newport's career was spent in familiar surroundings with Worcestershire. He reached 50 wickets in every season from 1991 to 1995, but after that he gradually faded from first-team contention, although he did manage one last hurrah in 1997, when he took 7-37 in a drawn game against Leicestershire
Leicestershire County Cricket Club
Leicestershire 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 Leicestershire. It has also been representative of the county of Rutland....
. The writing was on the wall, however, and Newport retired after the 1999 season, bowing out rather quietly with a National League
National League (cricket)
The NatWest Pro40 League was a one-day cricket league for first-class cricket counties in England and Wales. It was inaugurated in 1999, but was essentially the old Sunday League retitled to reflect the fact that large numbers of matches were played on days other than Sunday.-Sunday League:The...
game in which he did not bat or take a wicket, with only a single catch.
Newport is currently a teacher and cricket coach at the Royal Grammar School Worcester
Royal Grammar School Worcester
The Royal Grammar School Worcester is an independent coeducational school in Worcester, United Kingdom. Founded before 1291, it is one of the oldest British independent schools....
.