| Personal information | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Desmond Robert Fell | ||||||||||||||
| Born | 16 December 1912 Pietermaritzburg, Natal, South Africa | ||||||||||||||
| Died | 22 January 1992 (aged 79) Durban, Natal, South Africa | ||||||||||||||
| Batting | Left-handed | ||||||||||||||
| Bowling | Right-arm off-break | ||||||||||||||
| Domestic team information | |||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | ||||||||||||||
| 1931/32–1949/50 | Natal | ||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
Source: Cricinfo, 3 December 2020 | |||||||||||||||
Desmond Robert Fell (16 December 1912 – 22 January 1992) was a South African cricketer who played first-class cricket for Natal either side of the Second World War, and later became a Test cricket umpire.
Fell was born in Pietermaritzburg, where he attended Maritzburg College. He represented South African Schools in a match against the touring MCC team in March 1931. He made his first-class debut the next season.
Fell's most successful first-class season was 1946–47, when he scored 496 first-class runs at 49.60, including two centuries, the higher of these being the career-best 161 he hit against Rhodesia. He also passed 400 runs in 1937–38, but after that his highest aggregate was the 219 runs he accumulated in 1947–48.
Fell's only first-class match outside South Africa was the game he played for Dominions against England at Lord's in late August 1945; he made 12 and 28 in what was the first first-class match to be played in England after the end of the Second World War.
After his retirement from playing, Fell umpired 14 first-class matches in the 1950s and 1960s, almost all involving Natal. The two exceptions were the first Test between South Africa and New Zealand at Durban in 1961–62, and a non-Test game between a South African XI and the Australians at Pietermaritzburg in 1966–67.