The oldest former Oxfordshire player, Nat Fiennes, better known as Lord Saye and Sele, died on 20th January aged 103. He was the last surviving cricketer to have played for Oxfordshire before the Second World War. 

He played just one match for the county, against Cornwall at Christ Church, in 1938 when he was drafted in as wicket-keeper in the absence of the regular keeper Will Inge. Aged only 17, he was still a schoolboy at Eton College. Fiennes scored 26 in his only innings and took 3 catches in Cornwall’s first innings as Oxfordshire won by 10 wickets.

His obituary in ‘The Times’ described him as ‘a deft wicket-keeper and a classically elegant batsman who considered it close to a moral failing to hit the ball in the air’.

Fiennes inherited his title and the family home, Broughton Castle, in 1968 and gave great support to local groups and charities in later life.

Written by Julian Lawton Smith