Education
University of Auckland.
University of Auckland.
Worker made his first-class debut when he played one match for Auckland in the 1914-1915 season. After graduating from Auckland University College he became a schoolmaster. While teaching at Christchurch Boys" High School he appeared for Canterbury, playing his first game as an opening batsman in the 1919-1920 season.
Worker transferred to Otago Boys" High School and began playing for Otago.
He began the 1923-1924 Plunket Shield season with 172 and 16 against Canterbury, then scored 93 and 34 against Auckland. In the final match, against Wellington at Carisbrook, 1905 runs were scored over five days – which is still the seventh-highest aggregate in the history of first-class cricket – and Worker set the record for most runs in a Plunket Shield season.
When Wellington made 465 in their second innings their opening batsman John Hiddleston scored 150 to set a new of 505 runs in a season. Hiddleston reclaimed the record in the 1925-1926 season, when he made 537 runs.
After the Plunket Shield season ended, a New South Wales team played two matches against New Zealand.
Worker made 8 and 37 in the first match, and a pair in the second. In 1924-1925 Worker made 205 runs in the Plunket Shield at an average of 41.00 and played both matches for New Zealand against Victoria, scoring 33, 34, 55 and 6. He toured Australia with a New Zealand side in 1925-1926, playing all four matches, but finished seventh in both aggregates and averages, with 195 runs at 27.85.
He transferred to Wellington in 1926, playing three matches in 1926-1927, two in 1927-1928, and one each in 1928-1929 and 1929-1930.
His success was modest, apart from his one match in 1928-1929, when he made 151 and 73, top-scoring in each innings, and Wellington beat Auckland by 37 runs. Dick Brittenden described Worker as "a most brisk and businesslike man in nearly everything he did", and a batsman who made most of his runs on the leg side.