by John Lazenby
North-Eastern Transvaal v MCC at Berea Park, Pretoria, 10–13 December: North-Eastern Transvaal 161 (L. Brown 75; Wilkinson 5-24, Goddard 3-49) & 142 (Verity 4-20). MCC: 379-6dec (Paynter 102, Valentine 100, Hutton 66). MCC won by an innings and 76 runs.
Transvaal v MCC at the Wanderers, Johannesburg, 16–19 December: Transvaal 428-8dec (B. Mitchell 133, K. Viljoen 97, A. Langton 58; Wilkinson 4-74, Farnes 4-93) & 174-2 (S. Curnow 51). MCC: 268 (L. Ames 109; E. Davies 6-82). Match drawn.
Eastern Province v MCC, St George’s Park, Port Elizabeth, 7–9 January, 1939: Eastern Province 172 (A. Coy 54no; Farnes 5-58, Wright 4-45) & 111 (Wright 4-39, R. Perks 3-29). MCC: 518-6dec (Hutton 202, Paynter 99, Hammond 52, P. Gibb 51). MCC won by an innings and 235 runs.
Border v MCC at the Recreation Ground, East London, 13–16 January: Border 121 (Wright 4-34, Wilkinson 3-15) & 275 (R. Evans 88, D. Dowling 61; Wilkinson 4-63, Perks 3-86). MCC: 320 (Yardley 126, Wright 61; R. Chapman 4-60) & 79-1 (Edrich 50no). MCC won by nine wickets.
Combined Transvaal Xl v MCC at the Wanderers, Johannesburg, 27–30 January: Combined Transvaal XI 304 (Mitchell 83, Viljoen 76; Goddard 4-71) & 220-2 (A. Melville 107, E. Rowan 67no). MCC 434 (Hutton 148, Hammond 79, Valentine 71; S. Viljoen 6-91, E. Newson 3-78). Match drawn.
Rhodesia v MCC at Queen’s Ground, Bulawayo, 4–7 February: MCC 307-5dec (Hutton 145, Paynter 53). Rhodesia: 242 (P. Mansell 62; Wright 4-64, Wilkinson 3-66). Match drawn.
Rhodesia v MCC at Salisbury Sports Club, 10–13 February: MCC 180 & 174-2 (Edrich 101no). Rhodesia: 96 (Goddard 6-38) & 95-6. Match drawn.
Natal v MCC at Alexandra Park, Pietermaritzburg, 25–28 February: Natal 295 (Dalton 110, D. Nourse 67; Wilkinson 4-43, Perks 3-56) & 219 (Wright 6-55). MCC: 407 (Edrich 150, Ames 62; J. Ellis 3-93) & 110-1 (Hutton 53no). MCC won by nine wickets.
Western Province v MCC at Newlands, Cape Town, 11–14 March: match cancelled (timeless Test still in progress).
Notes
One
1 England invariably appointed their captain for a home series on a Test-by-Test basis.
2 The Gentlemen’s victory, by 133 runs, was only their second in this fixture at Lord’s since the First World War.
3 Woodrooffe was true to his word but, according to Time magazine on 23 May 1938, the ‘hat’ he ate was in fact a cake in the shape of one.
4 Bartlett replaced the Kent batsman Arthur Fagg, who declined his invitation because of ill health. Two other players, ‘Gubby’ Allen and the opening batsman Charlie Barnett, had announced their unavailability earlier during the season. The Nottinghamshire batsman Joe Hardstaff was a surprise omission, and some reports suggest that his exclusion amounted to an oversight on the part of Pelham Warner and the selectors.
Two
1 There were 39 matches in all, including a trip to the Hague where they played a fixture against the Netherlands on a matting wicket. Moreover, they returned home with a profit of some £18,000, making it easily the most successful tour undertaken by South Africa at that time.
2 It was a feat the Springboks would not manage again in England until 1965, when Peter van der Merwe’s side won the series 1–0 on what proved to be the last visit by a South African touring side to Britain for 29 years.
3 Cameron’s electrifying 90 was his highest Test score. In 26 Tests he hit 1,239 runs at an average of just over 30, completing 39 catches and 12 stumpings.
4 Duffus also made a brief appearance as a player on the tour after injuries had reduced the Springboks to only 11 fit players for the match against Glamorgan at Swansea on 3–6 August. When Herbert Wade damaged his hand and had to go off during Glamorgan’s second innings, he recalled, ‘a message was sent to me in the press box, and with borrowed flannels and a good deal of apprehension I went out to field’. Duffus made an instant impression, catching the opening batsman A. H. Dyson at slip off the bowling off Bruce Mitchell – a dismissal that, according to Wisden, ‘initiated a South African recovery’. The tourists went on to win by 96 runs.
Three
1 In David Thurlow’s Ken Farnes: Diary of an Essex Master, Farnes wrote that Hutton was unconscious for fully 15 minutes.
2 Gibb played so little cricket during the first weeks of the tour, Farnes observed, that he had been virtually reduced to the role of ‘a picnic member’. Bartlett, with a buccaneering century against Orange Free State and an undefeated 91 against Western Province already to his name, would have had good reason to feel hard done by.
3 The match was the 60th played between the two countries, 50 years since their first meeting in March 1889.
4 The 22,000 eclipsed the 18,000 attendance set during the first Test between South Africa and Australia at the Wanderers in December 1935.
5 Swanton revealed in a Sort of a Cricket Person in 1972 that the BBC were paying him £126 for 20 broadcasts to commentate on the Tests. As he admitted, it was hardly a lavish reward, ‘though in line no doubt with BBC scales of payment in the thirties’. However, because of the unforeseen longevity of the timeless Test – he completed 10 sessions on air during the game – he was able to show ‘a small profit on the enterprise’ at the conclusion of the tour.
6 Yardley wrote in Cricket Campaigns that this was by no means the last of Gibb’s escapades in his Ford. The car, he added, ‘became quite famous – or infamous – before the tour was over. But, as Paul has threatened my life if I print them, I am afraid you will have to be content with just this sample’.
7 The South African selectors refused to panic after the defeat in Durban and made only two changes to the side for the fourth Test in Johannesburg. Ronnie Grieveson replaced Billy Wade behind the stumps, while the fast bowler Eric Davies – who spilled 106 runs from only 15 overs in the third Test – made way for his fellow Transvaaler and new-ball bowler, ‘Bob’ Newson.
Four
1 Pollock, in the Daily Express, reported that Van der Bijl used a special short-handled bat.
2 The matter clearly rankled with Farnes, who wrote a year later in Tours and Tests that, ‘I am still ready to receive the £6,000 or more . . .’
3 Arthur William ‘Dave’ Nourse (1879–1948) was born in Croydon, Surrey, but went to South Africa with the army as a 17-year-old drummer in the West Riding Regiment and liked the country so much he decided to stay on. Wisden explained that he was known for so long as ‘Dave’ that he adopted it as his middle name instead of William. A hard-as-nails left-handed batsman, medium-paced swing bowler and exceptional slip fielder, he scored 2,234 runs in 45 consecutive Tests, including 11 fifties but only one century – 111 against Australia at Johannesburg in 1921. He toured the country of his birth on three occasions, making his last Test appearance at The Oval in 1924, and continued to play first-class cricket until he was 57. He scored 14,216 first-class runs, hitting a career-best 304 for Natal against Transvaal in the 1919–20 Currie Cup.
Five
1 The former Oxford University and Somerset pace bowler Robert Charles ‘Crusoe’ Robertson-Glasgow was some 6,000 miles away in England while the timeless Test was in progress, though you might never have known. However, as he pointed out in his notes on the match in the 1940 edition of Wisden, he was indebted to the benefit of Swanton’s observations on it, and he simply furnished the colour – a task for which he was extraordinarily well equipped.
2 In the words of Wisden, Crisp was ‘one of the most extraordinary men ever to play Test cricket’. He played in nine games for South Africa, between 1935–36, and he is the only bowler to have taken four wickets in four balls twice in first-class cricket. Among his many adventures he founded Drum, a radical magazine for the black population of South Africa, but it was his war exploits for which he is most revered. As Wisden wrote, ‘He was an outstanding but turbulent tank commander, fighting his own personal war against better-armoured Germans in Greece and North Africa. He had six tanks blasted from under him in a month and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for great gallantry. However, he annoyed authority so much that General Montgomery intervened personall
y and prevented him being given a Bar a year later; his second honour was downgraded to an MC.’ He died in Colchester, Essex, aged 82 in 1994, with, so it was said, a copy of Sporting Life on his lap, having just lost a £20 bet.
Six
1 Harold Geoffrey ‘Tuppy’ Owen-Smith (1909–1990) was a supremely gifted all-round sportsman. Although he made only five appearances for South Africa, all against England in 1929, he created a lasting impression as a dashing strokemaker, hitting 129 in the third Test at Headingley and scoring 252 runs in the series at 42.00. He also won cricket, rugby and boxing blues at Oxford and played 10 rugby internationals for England as an attacking full-back, captaining them on three occasions. He qualified at St Mary’s Hospital in London as a doctor of medicine and returned to South Africa, where he was a general practitioner for many years. He was only 30 in 1939 and there is no doubt his presence would have added considerably to the batting strength of the South Africans. Louis Duffus suggests that he had made himself available to the selectors for the timeless Test, but was passed over.
2 Edrich, Rowan and Gordon were said to be regular frequenters of the Athlone Gardens nightclub during the timeless Test. Gordon recalled that one spectator, exasperated by the ease with which England appeared to be heading towards victory on the last day, shouted at the South African fielders, ‘The match wasn’t lost at Kingsmead, fellas, it was lost at Athlone Gardens the night before.’
3 William Henry Ferguson (1880–1957) made what he thought would be his final and 41st tour in 1953–54, with New Zealand in South Africa, but was coaxed out of retirement three years later to accompany the West Indies to England. It was on tour there, Wisden recorded, that ‘a fall at a hotel in August prevented him from finishing it and he spent some time in hospital, returning home only two days before his death’. Earlier in 1957 he had been presented with the British Empire Medal for his services to the Commonwealth. The MCC and South Africa, he always maintained, were the most generous of his many employers, regularly awarding him a £25 bonus at the completion of a tour. The Australian board treated its fellow countryman only to ‘a letter of thanks’.
4 Swanton claimed there was ‘some slight evidence’ to support the official view that flying was too dangerous a means of travel for MCC’s players. The plane they would have flown on if the timeless Test was extended into an 11th day had to be dug out of the sand after landing at Mossel Bay on its way to Cape Town. ‘I know because I was on it,’ he wrote, ‘as also was Walter Hammond . . .’
Seven
1 Douglas Alexander, writing for Cricinfo in 2009, explained that Melville became ‘so accustomed to the daily routine of breakfast at their seafront hotel, followed by a drive to the ground, that [on the second rest day of the timeless Test] he looked around the dining room surprised to see no team-mates in sight. “They’ll be late for the ground if they don’t hurry,” he complained to a waiter. “But it’s Sunday, sir,” the smiling waiter replied’. Alexander added that Melville gave his complimentary tickets to an Imperial Airways flying-boat crew before the start of the Test: ‘They watched the first day’s play and, on reaching Britain after a four-day flight across Africa and the Mediterranean, handed their tickets to the new crew flying south. They arrived in Durban another four days later, yet still in time to watch the end of the match.’
2 Campbell achieved his last land speed record of 301.13mph at Bonneville salt-flats in Utah in 1935, and set another world record, this time on water, when he touched 141.44mph on Coniston Water in the Lake District in 1939.
3 Hutton described Smuts as a ‘gentle, noble man’ but admitted that, when ‘I asked him the question uppermost in everybody’s mind about the possibility of war, he did not prove himself to be much of a prophet . . .’
4 Graeme Pollock, Barry Richards and Mike Procter, to name but a few South African luminaries, first came to notice in the Nuffield Schools Week.
Eight
1 As they had been since their succession to Test status 11 years earlier, they were captained by a white West Indian, in this case Rolph Grant, a batsman who had struggled to hold down a first-team place in the Cambridge University XI. Constantine and Headley, both highly attuned, tactically shrewd cricketers in their own right, were not considered for the role, though they were the natural candidates. Instead they had to shoulder the burden of carrying the team, in terms of their playing skills, on the field. As such, the white West Indian was easily identifiable with the English amateur.
2 The SS Athenia was the first British ship to be sunk during World War Two. The sinking was condemned as a war crime, and 128 passengers and crew lost their lives.
Epilogue
1 Group captain Albert John (Jack) Holmes died suddenly at his home in Burwash, Sussex, aged 50, after a heart attack on 21 May 1950. He returned to the RAF during the war when he was awarded the Air Force Cross in 1940, receiving a Bar to the decoration two years later. In 208 first-class matches for Sussex and MCC, Holmes scored 6,282 runs at 21.22 with a highest score of 133. He was chairman of selectors for four years after the war but had to resign in 1950 because of ill health. ‘His genial personality made him very popular and contributed largely to his success as manager of the MCC team in South Africa in 1938–39,’ Wisden wrote. He made one appearance as a player on tour, scoring three not out against Orange Free State in Bloemfontein.
Bibliography
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General
Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack
Newspapers, magazines
Birmingham Post
Daily Express
Daily Mail
