Maurice Nichol

Maurice Nichol (10 September 1904 – 21 May 1934) was an English cricketer who played 136 first-class matches in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Other than one appearance for the Players in 1931, all his games were for Worcestershire.

Before beginning his first-class career, Nichol had played at minor counties level for Durham. He also had a trial for Surrey, but in 1928 (having not yet qualified to play in the County Championship) he made his first-class debut for Worcestershire against the touring West Indians at Worcester. Nichol achieved the feat of a hundred on debut by hitting 104, sharing in a stand of 207 with Harold Gibbons.

From 1929 onward, Nichol could play regularly for his county, and in that first full year he managed over 1,400 runs including two centuries and eight fifties. However, 1930 was to prove a more successful season: over the course of the summer he hit five hundreds and seven fifties, including what was to remain the highest score of his career, an unbeaten 262 against Hampshire at Dean Park, Bournemouth.

By 1931 there was talk that he might become good enough to play for England, and indeed he was twelfth man at the Lord's Test against New Zealand that summer, although he never actually gained a Test cap. He did, however, appear for the Players—also at Lord's—though he failed, making just 4 in his only innings. Although he made more than 1,300 runs in 1931, he struck only one century, and that winter he was struck down with pneumonia and was in hospital for several weeks. Although he returned to play in the 1932 season, his form was (perhaps understandably) poor, and he made only five half-centuries and well under 800 runs in the summer.