Frank Ashbolt was the son of Alfred Ashbolt, who worked as the printer for The New Zealand Times and also umpired 19 first-class cricket matches from 1886 to 1898.[1][2]
A leg-spin bowler, Frank Ashbolt played senior club cricket in Wellington from his early teens. In the 1891–92 season, aged 15, he twice took four wickets in four balls.[3]
He made his first-class debut at 17 in 1893–94, taking 4 for 48 and 2 for 34 for Wellington in a one-wicket loss to Auckland.[4] In his next match, against the touring New South Wales team three weeks later, he opened the bowling and took 6 for 52 in the first innings of a drawn match.[5] A few weeks later, in a low-scoring victory over Hawke's Bay, he took 5 for 37 and 5 for 32, and made 30 not out at number nine (the top score of the innings) and 24 not out.[6]
In 1894–95 he took 7 for 61 and 5 for 41 in another low-scoring victory, this time over Otago.[7] The next season he took seven wickets for Wellington against another New South Wales team,[8] but he was not selected in the New Zealand team to play New South Wales a few days later.
In 1898–99 he was a member of New Zealand's first touring team, which visited Australia in February 1899, but neither he nor the team as a whole was successful.[9] He took his best first-class figures in 1900–01 when his 5 for 39 and 8 for 58 helped Wellington to an innings victory over Hawke's Bay.[10]
While in London in 1916 he married Gladys Rhind. They lived in Wellington, and had two daughters and a son. He worked in the insurance business.[2]
His elder brother Alfred (1870–1930) moved to Tasmania, where he was a prominent businessman, served as Tasmania's agent-general in London, and was knighted.[12]
