Empire Cricket Booklet

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RICHARD PARRY AND DALE SLATER

In terms of wickets taken, the googly bowlers did not generally destroy the opposition in the Tests and the only South African bowler to take five wickets in an innings in the series was 'Tip' Snooke, who won the Third Test almost single-handedly, taking 8/70 off 31.4 overs in the second innings. But even though Vogler and Faulkner were still learning their trade, they put real pressure on the batsmen, and the matting wickets laid on rolled earth (except at Newlands where the matting was laid on turf) enabled quick tum and considerable bounce. Schwarz, Ernie Vogler, Aubrey Faulkner and to a considerably lesser extent, Gordon White, were above all skilled innovators, but each had a different strength. All bowled with a leg-break action and all

have been discussed particularly given his Middlesex links, the big surprises came in the conditions, and in the skills of the other bowlers. 35 In the First Test, South Africa fielded all four so-called googly bowlers in Schwarz, Vogler, Faulkner and White. With solid support from the indefatigable 'Dave' Nourse and Jimmy Sinclair, and the seam of S. J. 'Tip' Snooke, South Africa took the opposition by storm on the matting wickets. South Africa not only won a Test for the first time, but went on to win the series 4-1, the only time until 1953/54 that they were to win four Tests in a series. 36 In addition, they became the first side to field the same eleven players throughout a five-match series. Eight of the eleven were from the Transvaal, the culmination of Bailey's policy to bring together the best players in the country on the goldfields, and inaugurating the tradition that South African cricket is at its strongest when Transvaal cricket is strong. Schwarz of course, like Frank Mitchell, had been recruited from Britain and several of the team were directly or indirectly involved in the mining industry. This group of talented cricketers effectively paralleled Lord Milner's 'kindergarten', made up of young administrators imported from Britain at the end of the war to rebuild the state. It is interesting in this respect that hard-headed businessmen were willing to use sporting prowess as a mark of suitable character and talent for recruitment, though of course their - Schwarz and the like - English establishment and City connections would have been equally attractive to the less-polished magnates of the mining industry. 37 The Test matches began with South Africa's thrilling one-wicket win at the Wanderers in Johannesburg, based on one of the greatest ever rearguard actions in Test history. South Africa had made only 91 in their first innings and had to get 284 runs to win in the fourth innings of a match where no one else had managedover200runs,primarily thanks to Faulkner's 4/26 in the MCC's second innings. Gordon White led the way with 81 before Nourse (93 not out) and Percy Sherwell (22 not out) put on an undefeated 48 for the last wicket, an achievement to win a Test that was not bettered until Inzamam-ul-Haq and Mushtaq Ahmed added 57 for the tenth wicket to beat Australia at Karachi in the 1994/95 season.

Gordon White was primarily a batsman in his 17 Tests, scoring 872 runs (average 30.06) and taking 9 wickets at 33.44