Vale Chris McMurray

Gordon District Cricket Club acknowledges with sadness the passing of Chris McMurray in February this year.

Chris “Fred” McMurray, a fast-medium bowler who developed good pace on a hard pitch, joined the Club after leaving school half-way through the 1968-69 season.  He played another 8 seasons with Gordon, mostly in Third and Fourth Grade.  

In 1970-71, Chris took 46 wickets at the outstanding average of 10.78 in Fourth Grade and in the following season (1971-72), he took 50 wickets at an even better average of 9.94 (44 wickets at 9.36 in Fourth Grade and 6 at 12.17 in Third Grade, best figures 7-14, 7-33, 6-15, 5-45, 5-67).  In 1975-76, he took 49 wickets at 14.33 in Fourth Grade (best figures 7-50, 7-58, 6-56, 6-60, 6-64).

Chris was a member of the 69-70, 4th grade premiership team when he took 46 wickets at 10.65.

Chris took 336 wickets for Gordon at the excellent average of 14.51 with best figures of 8-37.  He took 5 wickets in an innings 20 times including 7 wickets or more six times. Only five other Gordon bowlers, all slow bowlers, have exceeded six times - Col Alderdice (18), Dick Guy (16), Jack Prowse (15), Charlie Macartney (11) and Norval Campbell (9).  Thus Chris (6) took 7 wickets in an innings more times in Gordon’s history than any other fast or fast-medium bowler.

Chris is 5th on the Club’s list of most wickets taken in Fourth Grade (164 at 12.36) and 10th on the Third Grade list (166 at 16.47).  Often the backbone of his team’s attack, Chris averaged 40 wickets per season for Gordon.  Not many bowlers achieve such a figure in their grade careers.  Chris was a very valuable lower grade player and he was unfortunate not to have played more games in the top two grades.  It was an era when there were quite a number of good fast-medium bowlers in the Club.  

Chris played 52 games in 4ths, 68 in 3rds and 1 in 2nds. He also scored 921 runs at 27.90.

RIP Chris McMurray