Alan Melville
Carnarvon, Cape Province, South Africa | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Died | 18 April 1983 Sabie, Transvaal, South Africa | (aged 72)|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Batting | Right-handed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bowling | Right-arm leg-break, later off-break | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Role | Initially all-rounder, later batsman only | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Relations | Colin (brother) Christopher Melville (nephew) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
International information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
National side | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Test debut (cap 152) | 24 December 1938 v England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Last Test | 5 January 1949 v England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Domestic team information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Years | Team | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1928/29–1929/30 | Transvaal | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Career statistics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source: CricketArchive, 25 May 2013 |
Alan Melville (19 May 1910 – 18 April 1983) was a South African
Early life and cricket career
Melville was a right-handed middle-order batsman sometimes used as an opener and a right-arm leg-break and googly bowler who later switched to off-breaks. Educated at
Before he went to Oxford, Melville was involved in a car accident in which he fractured three vertebrae; he appeared to have made a full recovery and was able to take his place at Oxford in the autumn of 1929.[2]
Cricket in England
Melville made an unbeaten century in the Freshman's trial match at Oxford and was thereafter a regular in the Oxford University side over the next four years, winning a Blue each year.
He scored 78 in his first first-class innings for Oxford against Kent in May 1930.[5] In the next game, he scored 118 against Yorkshire.[6] He did not maintain that form, but finished with 591 runs at an average of 32.83, plus 19 rather expensive wickets, though he was not successful with either bat or ball in the University Match against Cambridge University.[7] Melville's record improved slightly in 1931, with 631 runs and an average of 35.05, though there were no centuries. Injury to the University team's designated captain,
Following the end of the 1932 University cricket season, Melville made his debut for
The reason Melville was captaining Sussex at the end of the 1933 season was that the regular captain
In the winter of 1934–35, Melville was operated on for appendicitis.[17] He recovered in time to lead the team through the season, and though he again missed a few matches, he had a personally successful season, heading Sussex's Championship batting averages and scoring in all matches a total of 1904 runs at an average of 40.51.[16] His side had a mixed season, falling to seventh in the County Championship. At the end of the 1935 season, Melville resigned the Sussex captaincy; he played only irregularly for Sussex in the 1936 season though he finished with a flourish, scoring 152, his highest first-class score to that point, in his last game for the county, the match against the Indians.[18] When the season was over, he left England, moving back to South Africa where he took a job on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.[2]
Cricket in South Africa
Back in South Africa, Melville became captain of the Johannesburg-based Wanderers Cricket Club and in December 1936 played his first game for Transvaal, though he did not appear in Transvaal's
Despite this indifferent form, Melville was selected as the captain for the five Tests on the
Melville himself took a while to adapt to Test cricket. He was out without scoring in the only innings of the first game, one of five ducks in an innings of 390.[21] For the second match, he demoted himself from No 3 in the batting order to No 9 and scored 23 in his only innings.[22] For the third match, he went in at No 8 and scored 5 not out and 10.[23] Respite for Melville from this series of mediocre personal performances with a match for a Combined Transvaal XI against the MCC touring team immediately after the third Test defeat. Though he scored only 1 in the first innings, he resorted to opening the batting in the second innings and scored 107 "cutting, driving and hooking with effortless ease", Wisden reported.[24][25] That led him to open the South African innings in the fourth Test and he and van der Bijl – his collision partner from Oxford in 1932 – put on an opening partnership of 108 before Melville was out for 67.[26] Rain had spoiled the possibility of a South African victory in the fourth game, but the fifth match was due to be played to a finish, South Africa attempted to win through sheer weight of runs: the first innings lasted two-and-a-half days and totalled 530. Van der Bijl and Melville improved on their first-wicket stand in the first innings, scoring 131 before Melville was out for 78. After bowling England out for 316, Melville did not enforce the follow-on and the South Africans in their second innings scored 481; Melville himself had an injured thigh and this time came in at No 6 but scored 103, his first Test century. Despite the heavy scoring the match was left drawn after the 10th day when the England team, having scored 654 for five wickets in pursuit of a victory target of 696, were forced to leave the match as a draw to catch their ship home.[2][27]
Melville served with the South African forces during the
Postwar cricket and captaincy in England
Discharged from the forces in 1945, Melville undertook an intensive programme of rehabilitation and was able to resume his cricket career early in 1946.
The 1947 English cricket season was dominated by the run-getting exploits of Denis Compton and Bill Edrich, and the South African side led by Melville suffered at the hands of both batsmen in a hot summer made for batting. In the first half of the season, however, Melville's own batting form was almost as good, despite breaking a bone in his little finger early on and also straining his thigh during the first Test.[2] He made centuries in the second match of the tour against Leicestershire and in the fourth match against Surrey.[29][30] His form took a bit of a dip when he moved up to open the innings because Dennis Dyer, the expected opening partner for Bruce Mitchell, was badly out of form (and subsequently proved to have been ill for most of the season). The change proved successful in the first Test match, however: Melville scored a career-best 189 in the first innings and then, when the South Africans went in wanting 227 to win the match in 140 minutes, he hit an unbeaten 104 in the second innings, though the match remained drawn.[31] Melville's performance set several records: this was the first time a South African batsman had scored two separate hundreds in a Test match; his first innings of 189 was at the time the highest by a South African against England, though Mitchell equalled it and was not out later in the same series; Melville's third-wicket partnership of 319 with vice-captain Dudley Nourse was a record in all Test cricket for that wicket, though beaten by Compton and Edrich for England later in the series, and South Africa's highest for any wicket; the South African total of 533 was the highest against England; and Melville's two centuries meant he had scored three Test centuries in succession, as his final innings in 1938–39 had been 103.[32]
Melville was not finished with record-setting, however. In the next Test at Lord's, with the South Africans facing a huge England total, he scored yet another century, 117, to equal the record of four consecutive Test centuries set by Jack Fingleton in the 1930s.[33][34] The record of four hundreds in consecutive Test innings was beaten a year later by Everton Weekes of the West Indies who achieved five centuries in a row; Melville's (and Fingleton's) record of four has since been equalled only by Rahul Dravid.[35] The rest of the Lord's Test was less successful, however, and the South Africans lost the match after being forced to follow on, with Melville making just 8 in the second innings.
The match at Lord's set the pattern for the rest of the tour as South Africa's limited bowling and inconsistent batting were exposed by England's weight of runs from Compton and Edrich and the home side's greater bowling variety and experience. Melville made 17 and 59 in the third Test, played at
Outside the Tests, there was just one more century for Melville, against his old colleagues at Sussex, with an unbeaten 114 in a total of 555 for six wickets.
Final cricket and retirement
In the winter of 1948/49,
In retirement, Melville remained an influential figure in South African cricket and was a selector for the South African cricket team for many years. He died suddenly on a trip to the Kruger National Park in 1983.
References
- ^ "Alan Melville". www.cricketarchive.com. Retrieved 17 January 2012.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Wisden Cricketers of the Year: Alan Melville". Cricinfo. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: Natal v Transvaal". www.cricketarchive.com. 15 December 1928. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: Natal v Border". www.cricketarchive.com. 19 December 1928. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: Oxford University v Kent". www.cricketarchive.com. 3 May 1930. Retrieved 2 April 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: Oxford University v Yorkshire". www.cricketarchive.com. 7 May 1930. Retrieved 2 April 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: Oxford University v Cambridge University". www.cricketarchive.com. 7 July 1930. Retrieved 2 April 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: Oxford University v Cambridge University". www.cricketarchive.com. 6 July 1931. Retrieved 8 April 2013.
- ^ "The Universities—Oxford". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. Vol. Part II (1933 ed.). Wisden. p. 463.
- ^ "Scorecard: Oxford University v Free Foresters". www.cricketarchive.com. 14 May 1932. Retrieved 16 April 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: H>D>G> Leveson Gower's XI v Oxford University". www.cricketarchive.com. 29 June 1932. Retrieved 16 April 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: Oxford University v Cambridge University". www.cricketarchive.com. 4 July 1932. Retrieved 16 April 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: Surrey v Oxford University". www.cricketarchive.com. 24 June 1933. Retrieved 17 April 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: Sussex v West Indians". www.cricketarchive.com. 30 August 1933. Retrieved 17 April 2013.
- ^ "Sussex Matches". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. Vol. Part II (1935 ed.). Wisden. pp. 130–131.
- ^ a b c "First-class batting and fielding in each season by Alan Melville". www.cricketarchive.com. Retrieved 23 April 2013.
- ^ "Sussex Matches". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. Vol. Part II (1936 ed.). Wisden. p. 228.
- ^ "Scorecard: Sussex v Indians". www.cricketarchive.com. 29 August 1936. Retrieved 7 May 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: Transvaal v Rhodesia". www.cricketarchive.com. 16 December 1936. Retrieved 7 May 2013.
- ^ "M.C.C. Tour in South Africa, 1938–39". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (1940 ed.). Wisden. p. 715.
- ^ "Scorecard: South Africa v England". www.cricketarchive.com. 24 December 1938. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: South Africa v England". www.cricketarchive.com. 31 December 1938. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: South Africa v England". www.cricketarchive.com. 20 January 1939. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
- ^ "M.C.C. Tour in South Africa, 1938–39". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (1940 ed.). Wisden. p. 735.
- ^ "Scorecard: Combined Transvaal XI v MCC". www.cricketarchive.com. 27 January 1939. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: South Africa v England". www.cricketarchive.com. 18 February 1939. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: South Africa v England". www.cricketarchive.com. 3 March 1939. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: Griqualand West v Transvaal". www.cricketarchive.com. 1 November 1946. Retrieved 20 May 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: Leicestershire v South Africans". www.cricketarchive.com. 3 May 1947. Retrieved 22 May 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: Surrey v South Africans". www.cricketarchive.com. 10 May 1947. Retrieved 22 May 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: England v South Africa". www.cricketarchive.com. 7 June 1947. Retrieved 24 May 2013.
- ^ "South Africans in England, 1947". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (1948 ed.). Wisden. p. 202.
- ^ "South Africans in England, 1947". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (1948 ed.). Wisden. p. 206.
- ^ "Scorecard: England v South Africa". www.cricketarchive.com. 21 June 1947. Retrieved 25 May 2013.
- ^ "Consecutive Test match centuries". www.espncricinfo.com. Retrieved 25 May 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: England v South Africa". www.cricketarchive.com. 5 July 1947. Retrieved 25 May 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: England v South Africa". www.cricketarchive.com. 26 July 1947. Retrieved 25 May 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: England v South Africa". www.cricketarchive.com. 16 August 1947. Retrieved 25 May 2013.
- ^ "South Africans in England, 1947". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (1948 ed.). Wisden. p. 226.
- ^ a b "South Africans in England, 1947". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (1948 ed.). Wisden. p. 188.
- ^ "Scorecard: Sussex v South Africans". www.cricketarchive.com. 30 August 1947. Retrieved 25 May 2013.
- ^ a b "M.C.C. Team in South Africa, 1948–49". Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (1950 ed.). Wisden. p. 773.
- ^ "Scorecard: South Africa v England". www.cricketarchive.com. 1 January 1949. Retrieved 25 May 2013.
- ^ "Scorecard: Transvaal v MCC". www.cricketarchive.com. 21 January 1949. Retrieved 25 May 2013.