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.
Biography 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.
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