 Abell in 1964. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Batting | Right-handed | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Role | Wicket-keeper | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source:CricketArchive,15 April 2023 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sir George Edmond Brackenbury AbellKCIE OBE (22 June 1904 – 11 January 1989) was an English civil servant and cricketer. Although his civil service career was the more significant, he was an excellent all-round sportsman, who wonBlues forOxford at cricket,rugby union andhockey as well as playingcounty cricket forWorcestershire. He was born inWorcester, and died at the age of 84 inRamsbury, Wiltshire.
Abell was educated atMarlborough College andCorpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1928 he entered theIndian Civil Service and was posted to thePunjab. He wasPrivate Secretary to theGovernor of the Punjab 1941–43 and then private secretary to the last twoviceroys of India,Lord Wavell andLord Mountbatten.[1] He was appointed OBE in 1943,[2] and CIE in the1946 New Year Honours.[3] In 1947, shortly beforeIndian independence, he was knighted KCIE.[4] He returned to the United Kingdom and was a director of theBank of England 1952–64 andFirst Civil Service Commissioner 1964–67.[5][6]
Abell's first-class debut came forWorcestershire againstEssex atWorcester in August 1923; he had a quiet match, claiming no dismissals and scoring 1 and 6not out. Indeed, in three further appearances that season he appeared on the scorecard only once as a fielder: when he caughtGloucestershire captainPhilip Williams off the bowling ofFred Root. Abell scored 50 in the second innings of this game, the only half-century he would make for nearly two years.
The 1924 season saw Abell play 12 first-class matches: seven forOxford University and five for Worcestershire. His batting produced nothing of note (his highest score that season was just 23*) but he held 12 catches and made twostumpings. The following year, however, he passed 500 runs for the only time in his career, this total including 124 for Worcestershire againstSussex. He also claimed 17 dismissals. From 1926 until 1928 he performed poorly with the bat, 50 being his highest score in 31 innings, but he continued to pick up victims behind the stumps.
From 1928–29 to 1934–35 he played all his first-class cricket in India for a variety of sides, includingEuropeans, thePunjab Governor's XI – for whom he made 92 and 116 againstMuslims in March 1929 – and even on one occasion forIndia itself, againstCeylon.[7]However, the undoubted highlight of his career was the 210 he scored forNorthern India againstArmy in the firstRanji Trophy in 1934–35, the first double century made in the competition.[8]Northern India reached the final for the only time that season; Abell captained them againstBombay butVajifdar's second-innings 8–40 for Bombay ensured a heavy defeat for Northern India.
Abell returned to play in England during the second half of the 1935 season, and he also had a few matches in 1939. (His civil service commitments precluded more frequent appearances.) Most of these games were for Worcestershire, for whom he acted as captain three times in 1939, but he also turned out forMarylebone Cricket Club (MCC) on a handful of occasions. His final first-class game of all was atLahore, as captain of Northern India againstSouthern Punjab in the 1941–42 Ranji Trophy. He made one stumping, held two catches and scored 11 and 2 as Northern India ran out 74-run winners.
Two of Abell's sons,John andTimothy, had very brief first-class careers. Hisbrother-in-lawClaude Ashton had had a much more substantial career with Essex andCambridge, while his uncleTed Sale turned out a few times for Europeans.
Abell was portrayed by British ActorMichael Byrne in theITV television MiniseriesLord Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy in 1986, and by Ed Robinson in theSony LIVWeb SeriesFreedom at Midnight in 2024.
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| Preceded by | First Civil Service Commissioner 1964–1967 | Succeeded by |