Edging Towards Darkness: The story of the last timeless Test

by John Lazenby

  Now, for the first time in a series in South Africa, a full-strength England side would play all five Test matches on turf pitches, over four days’ duration and with eight-ball overs, too. In addition, it was agreed that the fifth Test would be timeless if the rubber was level or one side was leading 1–0. Hammond had never made a secret of his dislike for matting wickets, and before the 1938–39 MCC party sailed from Southampton for the Cape, he told reporters, ‘We have a good, young team and shall soon be playing on the fine pitches of South Africa. When last I was there they played on matting, now it is turf, and I believe very fine turf.’ The selection of Hammond’s team was seen in South Africa as testament to the progress made by its cricketers and, turf or matting, many expected the Springboks to crown their series victories over England in 1930–31 and 1935 with a third successive triumph. As Wisden, somewhat portentously, put it, ‘Our cricketers know full well that England has not beaten South Africa in a Test since 1929 and that upon them rests the responsibility of restoring the cricket prestige of the country where the game was cradled.’

  The nucleus of the victorious 1935 South Africa side – Mitchell, Nourse, Dalton, Langton, Balaskas, Viljoen and Eric Rowan – was still in place and, though Cameron’s loss remained keenly felt, it would be partly offset by the addition to the ranks of Alan Melville. In fact, Melville bypassed the ranks altogether and was appointed captain of South Africa for the 1938–39 series, despite never having played in a Test. The series was something of a homecoming for the tall, right-handed batsman after spending the past five years in England.

  He had established a reputation as an exquisite timer of the ball and a ruthless destroyer of fast bowling, first for Oxford University and then at Sussex, where he led the county for two seasons. Remarkably, before his arrival in England, he had never played on turf wickets before, but introduced himself by scoring 78 against Kent and taking 118 off Yorkshire at The Parks. During that time he put his studies ahead of Test cricket and resisted overtures from Douglas Jardine and others to switch allegiance to England, before returning to South Africa in 1936 to take a job with the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. As an arch-stylist he gave Hammond a run for his money, even his defensive strokes were ‘worth blueprinting’, the journalist Denzil Batchelor enthused. Jackie McGlew, the former South African captain, described Melville as ‘a gentleman to his fingertips: sleek, suave and sophisticated. His shirtsleeves were buttoned at the wrist, there were razor-sharp creases in his cream flannels and, more often than not, a sparkling white cravat knotted inside his collar’. A brilliant fielder, who moved with equal facility between silly mid-on, mid-off or slip, he would almost certainly have walked into an England XI had he wished.

  By general consensus, Melville inherited a Springbok side that lacked a top quality wicketkeeper-batsman (Cameron had left a huge void to fill), an opening attack worthy of the name, and a left-arm spinner. They would have to wait until the timeless Test in Durban before discovering a wicketkeeper to match those qualifications. But the form of Transvaal’s uncapped Norman Gordon – the 27-year-old had been the outstanding performer in the 1937–38 Currie Cup with a crop of 39 wickets – suggested that, if they didn’t know it yet, they already possessed a pace bowler of genuine Test-match class.

  Three

  The Call of Africa

  ‘We used to look hastily at the newspapers every morning to see whether the Luftwaffe had bombed our homes’ – Norman Yardley

  The lavender hull and clean white lines of a Union-Castle steamship were easily identifiable to the crowd on the quayside when, at 8 a.m. on 4 November 1938, the Athlone Castle tied up in the shadow of Table Mountain. Equally as distinguishable, and interspersed among the throng on the main deck, were the dark blue, red and yellow MCC blazers of the 12th team from England to tour South Africa. For the 13 cricketers who were making their first visit to the Union (only the West Countrymen Hammond and Tom Goddard were not seeing it through new eyes) it was a spectacular entrance into the Cape, and all attention was fixed on the towering wall of mountain, swathed in its tablecloth of cloud. ‘It was a wonderful sight,’ Len Hutton remembered. ‘Table Mountain dominated everything, and Cape Town looked like a toy town beneath it.’ Eddie Paynter even wondered whether the landmark had not been ‘deliberately decorated for the occasion’. He was just as impressed by the gleaming line of luxury limousines, waiting on the quay to whisk them straight to their hotel.

  Louis Duffus, now the correspondent for the Natal Daily News in Durban, was among the first of the pressmen and autograph hunters who went aboard to meet the players. Hutton was the most sought after and managed to throw the autograph hunters off the scent by sitting quietly behind a newspaper – a ploy that was easily rumbled by the members of the South African press. He was immediately surrounded and, in his quiet and understated manner, politely referred all requests for interviews to the manager. Hammond, having just breakfasted, looked the picture of unruffled calm and urbanity amidst the commotion and sudden surge of activity that accompanied a vessel’s arrival in port. ‘We had a very nice trip and we are all looking forward to our cricket,’ he informed reporters in a perfunctory exchange. Personally, he explained, he was keen to catch up with old friends again. This was his fourth trip to Cape Town, a city that would always command a special place in his affections. Twelve years earlier he had taken a coaching post in the suburb of Green Point and been dazzled by the beaches and startlingly modern buildings that ‘New York would be proud of’. There must have been a satisfying symmetry to the fact that he was returning to one of his favourite cities as the captain of England.

  The manager Jack Holmes was eagerly into his stride, emphasising the point that he had brought with him ‘the best side England can produce at the moment’, but saw no reason why South Africa should not have as good a team. Holmes, who had assumed the captaincy of Sussex from his good friend Alan Melville in 1936, added that everyone was well prepared for the tour, having taken advantage of the swimming pool and gymnasium during the voyage. The sun-worshippers among them already sported tans.

  Life on board one of ‘the most powerful British motorships afloat’, as the Union-Castle Line advertised its fleet, had clearly agreed with the players. Ever since James Lillywhite’s pioneers set the precedent in 1876, England touring teams always travelled first-class and the nine professionals in Hammond’s party basked in the same luxuries and comforts as the amateurs. There were fancy-dress nights, dances, music and deck games – golf, tennis, quoits – in which the Yorkshire amateur Paul Gibb proved a dab hand, winning four of the ship’s competitions to relieve Hammond of his crown. Two weeks at sea, with a short stopover in the Mediterranean sun of Madeira, was an infinitely more pleasurable experience for a cricketer than the 6,000-mile, two-month passage to Australia when most days were an inevitable battle against boredom and oppressive heat. As Hammond, who sailed on the Orion with ‘Gubby’ Allen’s MCC side for the 1936–37 Ashes series, commented at the time: ‘She was a lovely ship, but I wish she – well – had wings.’ The only concerns aboard the Athlone Castle had been the injuries sustained by Norman Yardley and Len Wilkinson, and the regular boat drill – a pervasive reminder of the looming threat of war.

  Yardley suffered a cracked rib and a deep cut under his right eye after slipping and falling against a rail while running on deck (they had encountered rough seas between Southampton and the Bay of Biscay). The cut required several stitches and, after being confined to his cabin for a couple of days, he had to stay hidden behind a pair of dark glasses for the rest of the voyage. ‘Somehow, a silly rumour got back to England that there had been trouble in the team and that I had been involved in a scrap,’ he recalled. It was Wilkinson’s injury that turned out to be the more puzzling, though. He had complained of pain in his left hand during the voyage and it was only after the side’s arrival in Cape Town that an X-ray revealed a fracture to a knuckle. He could provide no logical explanation for it, and any connection between Yardley’s cut eye and Wi
lkinson’s broken knuckle was vigorously dismissed by the management.

  After the usual tedious (for the players) round of functions and various speeches – Hammond’s addresses were notable only for their brevity – the team was anxious to get down to business. Yardley and Wilkinson were both missing against a Western Province Country District XI in the opening fixture, only four days and two net sessions after their arrival. Hammond and Paynter struck rapid centuries and MCC scored 589 in a day to win by an innings and 342 runs. The game was little value other than a gentle warm-up, acclimatising players to the light and the conditions against a side that was no more than club standard; but Hammond and Paynter ensured that the batsmen set a scorching tempo to the tour and Verity and Goddard, extracting turn and bounce, ran through the Country XI in quick succession on the second day.

  The batsmen did not let up and further victories quickly followed against Western Province, Griqualand West and Orange Free State. Kimberley, in Griqualand West, is the diamond capital of South Africa and the pitch there, they discovered to their astonishment, was even polished like one. In fact, it was almost black, and closer inspection by the players revealed that it contained not a single blade of grass; Farnes likened the surface to ‘an arterial road’. The batsmen feared the worst but were more than a little relieved when it turned out be one of the most placid they played on, racking up a first-innings total of 676 in a shade over six hours. Hutton, Edrich, Paynter and a restored Yardley filled their boots with centuries and Verity picked up another handful of wickets, 11 in all.

  During their stay in Kimberley the players visited the offices of De Beers and saw the Big Hole, a relic of the diamond rush of the 1870s. All that remained from those feverish days was a disused man-made crater, measuring a full 17 hectares (42 acres) in circumference. The three scratch golfers in the team, Hammond, Ames and Valentine, had some fun driving golf balls into its vast interior, where they were swallowed up by the deep green water some 800 metres below. By the time they claimed their fifth success from six games, against North-Eastern Transvaal in Pretoria – the most northerly point of their travels – the batsmen had already notched 12 centuries between them on the continent’s perfect pitches. Paynter, with three, was at the front of the queue in iridescent form, followed by Hammond, Hutton and Yardley with two, and Edrich, Valentine and Bartlett on one each.

  Only Natal at this point had managed to restrict them to a draw. There had been rain before the start of play in Durban and Hammond was mocked by a spectator when he walked out to inspect the wicket carrying his umbrella. ‘Where’s your bowler hat and spats?’ he was asked. The Englishmen, in turn, were amused by the sight of oxen pulling the mower in the outfield and by the regular bursts of music that played over the public address system during the intervals. Some of the music was a bit old-fashioned, in the view of William Pollock of the Daily Express, who dryly recalled that the idea had been tried in England on a couple of occasions, only to be hastily dropped: ‘Perhaps some of the spectators complained that it disturbed their sleep.’

  The tourists had the better of the draw once the rain cleared and, in reply to Natal’s 307, Hutton and Hammond completed their second centuries in another batting exhibition; Edrich, with 98, just missed out on his after putting on 207 for the opening wicket with Hutton. No doubt the England captain felt he had a point to make, for he was in sublime touch during his 122 and his cover-drives raced over the baize, striking the fence with a satisfying thump. Even Nourse admitted that there was a certain pleasure to be had fielding to a Hammond hundred: ‘He always delights when making runs. Perhaps the bowlers don’t take the same view, but as a fielder I loved watching those strokes, powerful and secure through the covers and the turn to leg off the body.’

  It was an impressive start to the tour, Duffus reported, and ‘the public flocked to watch the matches in unprecedented numbers’. It was almost, he added, ‘as if they sensed that the days of watching first-class cricket were limited – though few in this blessed country could have seriously entertained thoughts of war’.

  For Duffus, who spent four months accompanying the tourists on their journey, it was the most glorious of times: ‘It was my sixth cricket tour – the third round South Africa. Repetition dulled none of its attraction. There is no end to the fascination of big cricket, nor the romance that ever spreads itself over the vivid canvas of South Africa. I doubt whether there is a land where cricket is played that provides more glamour, more colour.’ The players were in huge demand, and on one occasion kept the train waiting at a wayside station while they were greeted by a local cricket club. After being hustled off to a specially convened function, Hammond and Holmes took the precaution of inviting the driver and guard along, so that the train could not continue its journey without them. By the end of their travels, Duffus calculated, they had covered some 12,000 miles on the articulated Garratt steam locomotives of the South African and Rhodesian railways. It was almost 900 miles from Johannesburg to Cape Town alone, and 1,000 between Durban and Cape Town, and included in both cases at least two nights on the rails.

  These black armour-clad giants of the veld were the pride of a nation and the most powerful trains in the southern hemisphere. They did not lack for opulence, either: a plush observation car was attached for the convenience of the players on all journeys. The introduction of air-conditioning to most South African trains by the end of thirties also added materially to their comforts. In the company of his fellow scribbler Pollock, Duffus got to know each individual well, even if the broad Lancashire accents of Paynter and Wilkinson frequently left him baffled. A tour of South Africa did not yet have the status of an Ashes adventure and, for the England players who toured Australia in 1936–37 in the company of Fleet Street’s finest and what seemed like half the Australian press corps in tow, the presence of so few journalists made for a welcome relief.

  An England team invariably gathers together the most diverse personalities and temperaments in the game, and the 1938–39 party, Duffus soon discovered, was no exception:

  ‘Art thee oop, Doog? Art thee oop?’ Down hotel passages at dawn, shouted above the rhythm of wheels as trains clattered their morning way over the veld, rose the sounds of Eddie Paynter’s dialect, calling Doug Wright. From bathrooms sometimes came the lusty unmusical strains of ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’. A university accent on your left and the rich brogue of Yorkshire on your right – the social ends of England gathered in a place like distant Bulawayo ordering breakfast because, if they shared no other characteristic, they had a common love of cricket: ‘I say, waitah, two eggs, turned . . . Steward, cold lom . . .’

  They were also a tightly knit, high-spirited group who, thrown together for four months, indulged in harmless pranks on each other and ‘forgot for a while that at home they might walk to the wicket through separate gates and never appear at the same social function’. In fact, their companionship and inexhaustible sense of fun owed much to the influence of Hammond and Holmes. On the voyage out, the England captain and manager devised a series of stunts and amusements to keep the team up to the mark, or at ‘concert pitch’ as Edrich called it. The players entered into it wholeheartedly. Every Monday at breakfast each man had to wear a bow-tie – the more extravagant the better – or pay a forfeit of five shillings. There were no exemptions. Fines were ruthlessly doled out to any slackers and the proceeds handed over to a charity. On appointed days in the week a penalty of sixpence was imposed on anyone who failed to drink with his left hand. Team members also carried a bottle top with them at all times and could be challenged at any moment – even in mid-innings – to produce it. ‘No wonder it was a joyous tour,’ Duffus wrote. Paynter was in no doubt that the captain’s ‘experience of both amateur and professional status’ had much to do with it.

  Yet privately Hammond worried about injuries, or more pertinently an injury befalling either Verity or Farnes. The batting, he knew, would take care of itself but a lack of depth in the bowling (he had decided to use himself onl
y sparingly) placed a heavy onus on the fitness of his principal spinner and fast bowler. Both had taken wickets in the early tour matches, notably Verity, whom Hammond regarded as ‘infallible’, the left-armer slotting automatically into that irresistible rhythm of his. Farnes had bowled with genuine pace when the wickets allowed (seven for 38 against Western Province at Newlands), and though Edrich might occasionally match him for speed in short spells he could not, in the view of his captain, ‘keep on the spot for very long’. As South Africa’s strength lay predominantly in batting, the prolonged fitness of both men was imperative. So Hammond was aghast when, just days before the start of the first Test, Verity walked into the lobby of the team hotel in Pretoria with his shirt and hands covered in blood.

  Verity and Wright, in fact, had been taking a stroll in the city when they stumbled across a street fight. One of the men had been stabbed and, after the assailants ran off, the cricketers flagged down a taxi, lifted the victim inside and saw him safely to hospital. Hammond had been barely able to contain his relief. ‘I thought he [Verity] had had a street accident,’ he explained, ‘and nearly jumped out of my skin at the thought that England’s safest bowling hands might be permanently damaged.’ The incident did not end there.