 Whitby gained his cricket blue in his freshman year.In addition to playing first-class cricket for Oxford, he also played for the Gentlemen in the Gentlemen v Players fixture of 1884 and for an England XI against the Australians at Edgbaston in 1886.He also toured North America in September 1885 with a team formed by the Devon amateur E. J. Sanders, making two first-class appearances on the tour against the Gentlemen of Philadelphia at Germantown.