Edwin Diver

Edwin James Diver (20 March 1861 – 27 December 1924) was an English first-class cricketer who played for Surrey and Warwickshire between 1883 and 1901. He was born in Cambridge and died at Pontardawe, Glamorgan, Wales.

The nephew of the mid-Victorian cricketer Alfred Diver, Edwin Diver was primarily a right-handed middle-order batsman, though he was also occasionally used as a wicketkeeper and even more occasionally as a right-arm medium-pace bowler, just once to devastating effect. He also played football as a goalkeeper for the Cambridgeshire county side and for Aston Villa.

Surrey cricketer

Diver qualified to play cricket for Surrey by residence as a schoolmaster at a school in Wimbledon and played for the county for four years from 1883. In the first three seasons, he played as an amateur. Though to modern eyes his figures do not look out-of-the-ordinary, his early career with Surrey was judged as "short but brilliant" by the editor of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, Sydney Pardon: in the obituary of Diver in the 1925 edition, Pardon wrote that he had been "a most attractive batsman in point of style, with splendid hitting power on the off side" and that his success had been instant.

In 1884, Diver was awarded his county cap by Surrey and was also selected for some of the most significant first-class matches of the season: the games between a "Gentlemen of England" side and the Australian touring team and the Gentlemen v Players match at The Oval. Pardon remembered the first match between the Gentlemen and the Australians more than 40 years on and reckoned it as "perhaps the most memorable in which he [Diver] ever took part". He wrote:

The Australians had to follow on, but they set the Gentlemen 128 to get in the last innings and against Palmer and Giffen, bowling at the top of their form on a worn pitch, the task proved a formidable one.