Background
Finlason was born in Camberwell, London, and died in Surbiton, London.
Finlason was born in Camberwell, London, and died in Surbiton, London.
He played first-class cricket in South Africa for Griqualand West (also known as Kimberley at the time) and Transvaal between 1888 and 1891. In 1889, he played a single Test match for South Africa against England, scoring six runs across two innings and failing to take a wicket. The match, at the Wanderers ground in Johannesburg, was designated "timeless", and finished with a Griqualand West victory after six days of play spread over a week.
Finlason scored 154 not out in Griqualand West"s second innings.
As of December 2014, this remains a record for the last wicket for Griqualand West. Later, Finlason described an expedition as newspaperman to Salisbury, Rhodesia (as that city and country were then called) by ox-drawn cart, with near-disastrous but very entertaining results, in his 1893 book A Nobody in Mashonaland.
Finlayson, C. East. (1893). A Nobody in Mashonaland.
Unknown publisher. Reprinted in 1970 as Rhodesiana Reprint Library: First (Gold) Series, Volume 9 X (standard) and (de luxe).
Frindall, Bill, educated (1979). The Wisden Book of Test Cricket, Volume 1 1877–1977. London: MacDonald & Jane"son
.
Bailey, Philip.
Thorn, Philip. Wynne-Thomas, Peter (1993). Who"s Who of Cricketers.
London: Hamlyn. 2nd edition Martin-Jenkins, Christopher (1996).
World Cricketers: A Biographical Dictionary.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.