William Vorrath
New Zealand cricketer (1904–1934)
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William Nelson Vorrath (21 October 1904 – 7 June 1934) was a New Zealand sportsman. Vorrath played six first-class cricket matches for Otago between the 1927–28 and 1929–30 seasons[1] and represented Otago at rugby league.
Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | William Nelson Vorrath | ||||||||||||||
| Born | 21 October 1904 Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand | ||||||||||||||
| Died | 7 June 1934 (aged 29) Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand | ||||||||||||||
| Batting | Left-handed | ||||||||||||||
| Role | Batsman | ||||||||||||||
| Domestic team information | |||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | ||||||||||||||
| 1927/28–1929/30 | Otago | ||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
Source: CricketArchive, 5 March 2017 | |||||||||||||||
Vorrath was born at Dunedin in 1904[2] into a sporting family. His father had played cricket in Australia, one of his brothers was a jockey and another represented the Otago Rugby Football Union, whilst his sister played lawn tennis.[3] William played club cricket for the Albion Cricket Club in Dunedin, captaining the club for four seasons.[3]
Five of Vorrath's six first-class appearances were made during the 1927–28 season when he played in all of Otago's representative matches.[4] He made his debut against Canterbury in December 1927, opening the batting and making scores of 11 and five. A series of low scores resulted in him dropping down the batting order and it was not until the side's final Plunket Shield match of the season that Vorrath made a significant score, making 103 not out batting at number eight against Wellington towards the end of January,[5][6] an innings which was called "memorable" in an obituary.[3] This was his only first-class century.[5]
After playing against the touring Australians towards the end of the season,[4] Vorrath made only one further appearance for Otago, opening the batting again in a December 1929 match against Auckland.[5] As well as cricket, Vorrath was a notable rugby player. He played rugby union for the Union club in Dunedin before switching codes to play rugby league. He represented Otago and South Island in the code.[4][7] He played in trials matches for the New Zealand national team and narrowly missed out on selection for the 1926–27 tour of Great Britain.[3] Illness forced his retirement from the sport.[3]
Professionally Vorrath was a plasterer[2] and worked at the Waitaki Hydro Works in 1933, playing some cricket for North Otago before returning to Dunedin.[3][8] He died at Dunedin Hospital after a week spent as an in-patient.[7] He was aged 29.[1][4]