by John Lazenby
Griqualand West, Orange Free State and Transvaal
Record in the timeless Test: scored 74 in the second innings after being dismissed for a duck in the first.
A stylish right-handed batsman, Viljoen played in 27 Tests but it was as an administrator that he made his most significant contribution to South African cricket. He will also be remembered as the man who needed two haircuts during the timeless Test. He managed the Springboks on two successful tours to Australia, in 1952–53 and 1963–64, and one to England in 1955, achieving a reputation as a firm but fair disciplinarian. The Springboks drew both series in Australia, much against expectation, and lost only narrowly, 3–2, to England. John Arlott wrote later that the principles he established on those tours – a great emphasis was put on fielding – did much to establish South Africa’s pre-eminence in world cricket during the 1960s. Viljoen toured England for the second time in 1947 when his experience was a boon to Melville, and played his last Test, also against England, at Port Elizabeth two years later. He was a brilliant outfielder whose 27 Tests realised 1,365 runs at 28.43, and included two centuries. He died in Krugersdorp, Transvaal, aged 63.
Eric Londesbrough Dalton (1906–81)
Natal
Record in the timeless Test: scored 78 runs, including 57 in first innings. Bowled 40 overs for six wickets, including first-innings figures of four for 59, and held one catch.
Dalton was 40 when cricket resumed again and his Test days, sadly, were behind him. He will be remembered as a crunching middle-order strokemaker and a useful leg-spinner, who had a habit of picking up important wickets (Hammond succumbed to him twice in the timeless Test, stumped on both occasions) and for disposing of irksome partnerships. He averaged 44 in the 1938–39 series, including a century in the first Test in Johannesburg, where he wielded his heavy bat to resounding effect in the extreme altitude. The England players – and Farnes in particular – rated him highly, as much for his attitude as anything: Test cricket was just another game to him. An amiable character, Dalton toured England twice, in 1929 and 1935, and played in 15 Tests, scoring 698 runs at 31.72 and capturing 12 wickets at 40.83 apiece. He died in Durban at the age of 74. He is celebrated as one of South Africa’s finest all-round sportsmen: an amateur golf champion (1950) and an accomplished tennis, table-tennis player and footballer. In addition he was a fine baritone and played the piano – brilliantly, of course.
Pieter Gerhard Vintcent van der Bijl (1907–73)
Oxford University and Western Province
Record in the timeless Test: scored 222 runs, hitting 125 and 97.
Despite only a modest career as a varsity cricketer – some thought him a better boxer – the towering Van der Bijl went on to play in five Tests against England and score 460 runs at a highly respectable 51. Ponderous in style he may have been, but as an opening batsman he lacked for nothing in courage or determination. ‘It has always puzzled me what the meaning of eternity is,’ he is reported to have said after the timeless Test. ‘Now I have a good idea.’ He missed out by three runs in that match on becoming the first South African to score a century in each innings of a Test, falling to the softest of dismissals off the bowling of Wright. He was a Captain in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Rifles, later promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, and awarded the Military Cross. On one occasion in North Africa, he commanded an armoured car across several hundred yards of exposed desert terrain to retrieve half-a-dozen wounded infantrymen from under the nose of the German artillery.
He was badly wounded in Italy and invalided out of the army in 1943; his injuries prevented him from playing any further first-class cricket after the war. He returned to his post as a schoolmaster and also acted as a selector and cricket administrator. His son Vintcent was a formidable fast-medium bowler whose career coincided with the years South Africa spent in sporting isolation, and is regarded as one of the best cricketers never to have played in a Test. Pieter van der Bijl scored 2,692 runs in all first-class cricket, and died of a heart attack in Cape Town at the age of 65.
Ronald Eustace Grieveson (1909–98)
Transvaal
Record in the timeless Test: scored 114 runs, including 75 in first innings. Completed three stumpings, and held two catches.
In the space of just two Tests, Grieveson established himself as one of South Africa’s most influential and indispensable cricketers. He conceded only 15 byes in England’s aggregate of 970 runs in the timeless Test, while his 75 runs in the Springboks’ first innings (he did not bat in his first Test in Johannesburg) was the highest debut score by a wicketkeeper in a Test at that point. His genuine enthusiasm at playing for his country was reflected in his cricket, and his natural exuberance behind the stumps or with the bat rapidly rubbed off on the rest of the XI. The timeless Test left him far from surfeited. ‘What a game,’ was how he liked to remember it. Louis Duffus called his wicketkeeping ‘high-class’ and instantly identified him as a ‘key player’; Farnes considered him as good a bat as any in the South African side. However, as he was nearly 30 when he debuted in Johannesburg, the war effectively put an end to his international career. He scored 114 runs in two Test innings at an average of 57, and completed seven catches and three stumpings. During the war, Grieveson joined the army and rose to the rank of major, winning an OBE for his services. He was later a selector for several years, and died in Johannesburg, aged 88.
Edward Serrurier Newson (1910–88)
Transvaal and Rhodesia
Record in the timeless Test: bowled 68.6 overs for two wickets, and scored four runs.
In terms of runs per over, ‘Bob’ Newson was South Africa’s most economical bowler in the timeless Test, delivering 68.6 overs at a cost of 149 runs. A somewhat peripatetic right-arm fast bowler, his three Test appearances were spread over nine years after making his debut against England in 1930 at the Wanderers. Bizarrely, the selectors neglected to inform him of his selection and he had turned up to work as usual on the morning of the Test. There was a frantic rush to get him to the ground on time. South Africa won narrowly by 28 runs and, after failing to capture a wicket, Newson was dropped. He dropped out of the game for almost eight years after that, reappearing for South Africa in the fourth Test against England in 1939. After the war he moved to Rhodesia and in 1949 recorded his best bowling figures of five for 54 against MCC in Bulawayo. He claimed four Test wickets at 56 apiece, and 60 in 24 first-class matches. He died in Durban, aged 77.
Norman Gordon (1911–2014)
Transvaal
Record in the timeless Test: bowled 92.2 overs for one wicket. Scored seven runs, and held the catch that dismissed Edrich for 219.
When the 17-man Springbok party to tour England in 1947 was announced, Gordon’s name was missing. The side was decidedly light on pace bowlers, and the three chosen – Lindsay Tuckett, Ossie Dawson and Jack Plimsoll – could not muster a Test cap between them; instead the selectors had packed the team with spinners. A convincing case could have been made for Gordon’s inclusion, particularly as there was no ‘Chud’ Langton to call on any more. He was still fit, capable of bowling for long spells and made no secret of his eagerness to tour. More significantly, he was a proven Test cricketer and conditions in England would have been much to his liking.
Gordon always believed, however, that his omission had less to do with cricket and more to do with the fact he was Jewish; and that Melville didn’t want to risk taking him on tour. The matter still appeared raw 64 years later. ‘A friend of mine told me he had heard from one of the selectors that Melville had advised them not to select me as there might be anti-Semitism and unpleasantness in England,’ he explained in an interview with the Daily Telegraph in 2011. ‘He thought it expedient to leave me out. There was quite a bit of feeling about Jews in England even after the war.’ British soldiers were being killed on the streets of Palestine, and their deaths were a part of the general despair, exhaustion, hunger and frayed tempers that beset bombed-out Britain in 1947.
Gordon was prou
d of his faith. He wasn’t the first Jew to play Test cricket for South Africa but he had been the first to openly admit to it at a time of frightening anti-Semitism. He liked to laugh off an incident during his Test debut in Johannesburg when a heckler shouted at him, ‘Here comes the rabbi.’ ‘Fortunately I took five wickets in the innings and that shut him up for the rest of the series,’ he recalled. Yet it was also true that wickets had not been in plentiful supply for him during the 1946–47 season; the selectors had picked a young side and, at nearly 36, he was no longer the future. Whatever the reasons for his exclusion in 1947 it signalled the end of his career, and he played his last game for Transvaal against George Mann’s MCC tourists at Ellis Park in December 1948. Hutton wrote later that, but for the war, ‘he would have made a big name for himself’.
Afterwards he ran a sports shop – Luggage Craft – on Eloff Street, one of Johannesburg’s grandest thoroughfares during the forties and fifties. One of his regular customers was Ali Bacher, the future captain of South Africa, who bought his first bat there at the age of 11, hand-picked for him by Gordon. When Gordon reached his century in 2011, it was Bacher who organised the celebrations. Mike Procter, Peter and Graeme Pollock from the 1970 Springbok team of all the talents were there, as were a cohort of fast bowlers, spanning the generations: Neil Adcock, Shaun Pollock, Fanie de Villiers and Makhaya Ntini. And it was Bacher who led the tributes in the days after Gordon’s death, aged 103, on 2 September 2014, admiring him as a man ‘who had a passion for cricket and always lived life to the fullest’. There were 126 wickets at 22.24 apiece in 29 first-class games, and 20 in five Tests at 40.35, though his figures were unfairly distorted by the timeless Test’s indestructible pitch and cannot tell the full story of the countless close shaves and near misses: 92.2-17-256-1. ‘It was like bowling on glass,’ he told SA Cricket magazine.
Perhaps, in the end, Gordon did well to avoid the tour of 1947. It was permanent high summer for the batsmen, and the ‘Middlesex Twins’ Compton and Edrich especially. The South Africans renamed them the ‘Terrible Twins’, conceding over 2,000 runs in all to their blazing bats. The pitches were flat, the ball hardly swung and the sun never stopped shining; improbably, even the Springboks complained it was too hot. ‘The crowds were existing on rations, the rocket bomb still in the ears of most folk,’ Cardus wrote, and each stroke from Compton represented ‘a flick of delight, a propulsion of happy, sane, healthy life’. The only things that weren’t rationed that summer, it seemed, were runs. England won the series 3–0, and no one mentioned timeless Tests.
Timeless Test Scoreboard
Kingsmead, Durban, 3–14 March 1939
South Africa
*A. Melville hit wkt b Wright 78 – (6) b Fames 103
P. G. V. van der Bijl b Perks 125 – c Paynter b Wright 97
E. A. B. Rowan lbw b Perks 33 – c Edrich b Verity 0
B. Mitchell b Wright 11 – (1) hit wkt b Verity 89
A. D. Nourse b Perks 103 – (4) c Hutton b Fames 25
K. G. Viljoen c Ames b Perks 0 – (5) b Perks 74
E. L. Dalton c Ames b Fames 57 – c and b Wright 21
†R. E. Grieveson b Perks 75 – b Fames 39
A. C. B. Langton c Paynter b Verity 27 – c Hammond b Fames 6
E. S. Newson c and b Verity 1 – b Wright 3
N. Gordon not out 0 – not out 7
B 2, lb 12, nb 6 20 B 5, lb 8, nb 4 17
1/131 (1) 2/219 (3) (202.6 overs)3/236 (4) 4/274 (2)5/278 (6) 6/368 (7) 7/475 (5)8/522 (8) 9/523 (10) 10/530 (9) 530 1/191 (1) 2/191 (3) (142.1 overs)3/191 (2) 4/242 (4)5/346 (5) 6/382 (7) 7/434 (6)8/450 (9) 9/462 (10) 10/481 (8) 481
Fames 46–9–108–1; Perks 41–5–100–5; Wright 37–6–142–2; Verity 55.6–14–97–2; Hammond 14–4–34–0; Edrich 9–2–29–0. Second innings—Farnes 22.1–2–74–4; Perks 32–6–99–1; Wright 32–7–146–3; Verity 40–9–87–2; Edrich 6–1–18–0; Hammond 9–1–30–0; Hutton 1–0–10–0.
England
L. Hutton run out 38 – b Mitchell 55
P. A. Gibb c Grieveson b Newson 4 – b Dalton 120
E. Paynter lbw b Langton 62 – (5) c Grieveson b Gordon 75
*W. R. Hammond st Grieveson b Dalton 24 – st Grieveson b Dalton 140
†L. E. G. Ames c Dalton b Langton 84 – (6) not out 17
W. J. Edrich c Rowan b Langton 1 – (3) c Gordon b Langton 219
B. H. Valentine st Grieveson b Dalton 26 – not out 4
H. Verity b Dalton 3
D. V. P. Wright c Langton b Dalton 26
K. Fames b Newson 20
R. T. D. Perks not out 2
B 7, lb 17, w l, nb 1 26 B 8, lb 12, w 1, nb 3 24
1/9 (2) 2/64 (1) 3/125 (4) (117.6 overs)4/169 (3) 5/171 (6) 6/229 (7)7/245 (8) 8/276 (5) 9/305 (9) 10/316 (10) 316 1/78 (1) (5 wkts, 218.2 overs)2/358 (2) 3/447 (3)4/611 (5) 5/650 (4) 654
Newson 25.6–5–58–2; Langton 35–12–71–3: Gordon 37–7–82–0; Mitchell 7–0–20–0; Dalton 13–1–59–4. Second innings—Newson 43–4–91–0; Gordon 55.2–10–174–1; Langton 56–12–132–1; Dalton 27–3–100–2; Mitchell 37–4–133–1.
Umpires: R. G. A. Ashman and G. L. Sickler.
Close of play: first day, South Africa 229-2 (Van der Bijl 105, Mitchell 4); second day, South Africa 423-6 (Nourse 77, Grieveson 26); third day, England 35-1 (Hutton 24, Paynter 6); fourth day, England 268-7 (Ames 82, Wright 5); fifth day, South Africa 193-3 (Nourse 1, Viljoen 1); sixth day, England 0-0 (Hutton 0, Gibb 0); seventh day, England 253-1 (Gibb 78, Edrich 107); eighth day, no play; ninth day, England 496-3 (Hammond 58, Paynter 24).
The Records
• The timeless Test is the longest first-class match played. It lasted nine playing days (rain prevented any play on the eighth day) and was spread over 12 days in all (3–14 March). There were 43 hours and 16 minutes of playing time.
• The 1,981 runs are the most recorded in a Test match.
• A record number of balls – 5,447 (680.7 overs) – were bowled in the match; the new ball was taken 12 times.
• England’s second-innings total of 654 for five is the highest fourth-innings score in a Test.
• The second-wicket stand of 280 between Paul Gibb and Bill Edrich was a record partnership for any wicket in England–South Africa Tests. It remains the highest second-wicket partnership between the two countries.
• Edrich became the first Englishman to score a double-century in the second innings of a Test.
• Gibb’s 120 was the slowest Test century scored by an Englishman. He reached his 100 in 362 minutes.
• Dudley Nourse reached his century (103) in 364 minutes and was the slowest by a South African in a Test.
• South Africa’s aggregate of 1,011 runs was their highest in a Test.
• England’s aggregate of 970 runs was their most in a Test against South Africa.
• Pieter van der Bijl’s 125 in 428 minutes was the longest Test innings by a South African against England (the record for the longest innings by a South African was held by Charlie Frank, who hit 152 in 512 minutes against Australia in 1921). Van der Bijl spent 658 minutes at the crease in all – just two minutes under 11 hours.
• He was also the first South African to score a century and a 90 in the same Test.
• South Africa became only the second side to score more than 450 in both innings of a Test.
• There were 16 innings of over 50 in the match – no Test had previously produced as many.
• Nine of those half-centuries were recorded by South Africans – a record for the country.
• South Africa’s first-innings total of 530 was their highest Test score.
• It was also the longest, at 13 hours, in Tests played between the two countries.
• Ronnie Grieveson’s 75 during South Africa’s first innings was the highest score by a wicketkeeper in his maiden Test innings.
• Hedley Verity�
�s 766 balls (95.6 overs) were the most delivered by any bowler in a Test.
• Norman Gordon’s 738 balls (92.2 overs) remain the most by a fast bowler in a Test.
• The £3,640 receipts from the first five days of the timeless Test were a record for Kingsmead.
• Stumps were drawn before time on eight consecutive days – on seven occasions for bad light and once for rain.
• Walter Hammond equalled Don Bradman’s record when he scored his 21st Test century – 140 – in England’s second innings.
MCC in South Africa 1938–39
List of 13 provincial matches played on tour:
Western Province Country District v MCC at the Strand, Cape Town, 8–9 November 1938: MCC 589-8dec (E. Paynter 193, W. Hammond 106, B. Valentine 69, L. Hutton 68, H. Verity 66no; J. Sleigh 5-161). Western Province County District: 140 (Verity 4-26, T. Goddard 4-39) & 107 (W. Edrich 4-13, Verity 3-29). MCC won by an innings and 342 runs.
Western Province v MCC at Newlands, Cape Town, 12–15 November: Western Province 174 (Edrich 4-10, K. Farnes 3-32) & 169 (A. Ralph 61no; Farnes 7-38, D. Wright 3-64). MCC: 276 (H. Bartlett 91no) & 69-2. MCC won by eight wickets.
Griqualand West v MCC at Kimberley Athletic Club, Kimberley, 19–22 November: MCC 676 (Paynter 158, Hutton 149, N. Yardley 142; J. McNally 5-154). Griqualand West 114 (Verity 7-22) & 273 (A. Steyn 65, F. Nicholson 61; Verity 4-44, Goddard 3-64). MCC won by an innings and 289 runs.
Orange Free State v MCC at the South African Railways Ground, Bloemfontein, 26–28 November: Orange Free State 128 (L. Wilkinson 5-10, Wright 5-81) & 260 (S. Coen 61; Verity 7-75). MCC: 412-6dec (Yardley 142no, Bartlett 100; H. Sparks 4-89). MCC won by an innings and 24 runs.
Natal v MCC at Kingsmead, Durban, 3–5 December: Natal 307 (R. Harvey 92, W. Wade 56; Verity 3-49, Wright 3-81) & 30-0. MCC 458 (Hammond 122, Hutton 108, Edrich 98; E. Dalton 6-116). Match drawn.
