Samuel Beckett is the Nobel Prize winner to have played first-class cricket. Samuel Beckett was an Irish novelist and playwright, his novels and plays established him as one of the important literary figures of the twentieth century, bringing him the Nobel Prize for literature in 1969. He had also played two first-class games for Dublin University against Northamptonshire in 1925 and 1926, scoring 35 runs in his four innings and conceding 64 runs without taking a wicket.