Empire Cricket Booklet

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BOER PRISONERS OF WAR IN CEYLON

Consolidated Mines. Tancred and De Villiers played together for a few seasons before De Villiers returned to Cape Town 'to pulverise the batsmen of the Peninsula'. 20 De Villiers made his first-class debut for Western Province in 1889/90 and played his fourth and last first-class match the following season. 2 1 De Villiers played his first of many matches against visiting English teams in December 1888 when he was selected for a Cape Colony XV against Major Warton's team. Scoring a pair would have done little for his self-esteem, but two weeks later, on 14 January 1889, he got the opportunity to redeem himself when the English team played against a Kimberley XVIII. The single wicket that he took in the visitors' first

P. H. de Villiers 18

Pieter Hendrik de Villiers was not only the 'cricketing father' of the Boers at Diyatalawa, but also captained the team against Colombo. Aged 33, he was, based on photographic and other evidence, probably the oldest member of the team. Of well-known Cape stock, De Villiers was born at Goede Hoop, near Stanford in the Cape Colony, in 186Z 19 He was the only Boer cricketer with pre-war first-class cricket experience. In the early days of Kimberley cricket, both he and A B. Tancred were members of the Eclectic Club. When a (mainly) Kimberley team, the 'Stray Klips', went on tour in January 1887, it included Tancred and De Villiers, as well as author and journalist C. E. Finlason and I. R. Grimmer, who was employed by De Beers

The Colts from Colombo and the Boer prisoners of war who played a two-day match in July 1901 Left to right, back row: Phillipus Oosthuizen (scorer -Boers), Gert Kotze, J. Coetzer, W. de Fransz, Piet du Plessis, C. E. Perera, Sydney Tennant (umpire - Boers), A. C. Solomons (umpire- Colts) Middle row: Jim Ludovici, Cornelius Otto, S. P. Joseph (scorer-Colts), Alexus Smuts, Tommy Kelaart, R.C.Dunn, E. A.Joseph, A. T. Pollocks, J. Forsyth, Tommy Hilder Front row: J.C. McHeyzer, J.(Bada) Kelaart, Coert van Zijl, Dr Allan Raffel (captain- Colts), Pieter de Villiers (captain - Boers), George Sennett, L. Thomasz, Johannes Scheepers