William Harold Rowland was a Welsh

Welsh people

The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...

 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. Rowland's batting style is unknown, but it is known he occasionally fielded as a wicket-keeper

Wicket-keeper

The wicket-keeper in the sport of cricket is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket or stumps being guarded by the batsman currently on strike...

. He was born in Llandrillo-yn-Rhos, Denbighshire

Denbighshire

Denbighshire is a county in north-east Wales. It is named after the historic county of Denbighshire, but has substantially different borders. Denbighshire has the distinction of being the oldest inhabited part of Wales. Pontnewydd Palaeolithic site has remains of Neanderthals from 225,000 years...

.

Rowland made his 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...

 debut for Wales against the Marylebone Cricket Club

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 1925. He made five further first-class appearances for Wales, the last of which came against the Marylebone Cricket Club in 1930. In his thirteen first-class matches, he scored 25 runs at an average

Batting average

Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball that measures the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters. The two statistics are related in that baseball averages are directly descended from the concept of cricket averages.- Cricket :...

 of 5.00, with a high score of 11 not out

Not out

In cricket, a batsman will be not out if he comes out to bat in an innings and has not been dismissed by the end of the innings. One may similarly describe a batsman as not out while the innings is still in progress...

. He also played Minor counties cricket for Denbighshire

Denbighshire County Cricket Club

Denbighshire County Cricket Club was a county cricket club based in the historic Welsh county of Denbighshire, that played in the Minor Counties Championship for five seasons from 1930 to 1935 . The side was unsuccessful, and in its final season it lost each of its eight matches, six of them by an...

, who he made his debut for in the 1930 Minor Counties Championship against Cheshire

Cheshire County Cricket Club

Cheshire County Cricket Club is one of the county clubs which make up the Minor Counties in the English domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Cheshire and playing in the Minor Counties Championship and the MCCA Knockout Trophy...

. He made two further Minor Counties Championship appearances for the county, both in 1930 against Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire County Cricket Club

Lincolnshire County Cricket Club is one of the county clubs, which make up the Minor Counties in the English domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Lincolnshire and playing in the Minor Counties Championship and the MCCA Knockout Trophy...

 and the Lancashire Second XI

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...

.

He died in Wilford

Wilford

Wilford is a village close to the centre the city of Nottingham, UK, on the banks of the River Trent. It has been described as a semi-rural village in a city. The village is bounded to the north and west by the River Trent and to the east by the embankment of the now closed Great Central Railway...

, Nottinghamshire

Nottinghamshire

Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west...

 on 12 April 1942. He was survived by his brother Cyril

Cyril Rowland

Cyril Arthur Rowland was a Welsh cricketer. Rowland was a right-handed batsman who occasionally fielded as a wicket-keeper. He was born in Llandrillo-yn-Rhos, Denbighshire....

, who also played first-class cricket for Wales.

External links

• William Rowland at ESPNcricinfo
• William Rowland at CricketArchive
  CricketArchive
  CricketArchive is a website that aims to provide a comprehensive archive of records relating to the sport of cricket. It claims to be the most comprehensive cricket database on the internet, including scorecards for all matches of first-class cricket , List A cricket , Women's Test cricket and...