Michael Melle
Transvaal | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 28 December 2003 (aged 73) Betty's Bay, South Africa | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Batting | Right-handed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling | Right-arm fast | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| National side | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Test debut | 10 February 1950 v Australia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last Test | 24 January 1953 v Australia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source: Cricinfo, 15 November 2022 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Michael George Melle (3 June 1930 – 28 December 2003) was a South African cricketer who played in seven Test matches from 1950 to 1953. Melle was educated at Hilton College.
A "genuinely fast right-arm bowler",
He played his first
Despite missing several weeks of the tour owing to a hernia operation[4] he headed the tour averages with 50 wickets at 20.28. However, he played only the Fifth Test (when he took figures of 10–6–9–4 in the first innings)[5] the tour selectors preferring to use a two-man pace attack of McCarthy and Geoff Chubb for the first four Tests. He took his best innings and match figures for the tour after the Test series had finished: 2 for 22 and 6 for 71 against T.N. Pearce's XI at Scarborough.
His form fell away somewhat in 1951–52[6] but in six matches he took 17 wickets at 27.35, and as McCarthy was unavailable and Chubb had retired Melle was selected to tour Australasia in 1952–53 as the most experienced of the four pace bowlers in the team. (Of the others, Eddie Fuller and Anton Murray had played no Tests, and John Watkins had played three Tests and taken three wickets.) Melle took seven expensive wickets in the five matches leading up to the First Test, but then at Brisbane, bowling 46.5 eight-ball overs in the Test, he took 6 for 71 and 3 for 95, he and his opening partner Watkins "maintain[ing] an admirable consistency of length and hostility"[7] in a match that Australia won narrowly.[8] However, he took only five wickets for 365 in the next three Tests and lost his place, despite a remarkable performance against Tasmania in Launceston: 3 for 34 in the first innings and, bowling unchanged in the second innings, 9 for 22.[9]
After two matches in the 1953–54 season he played no more first-class cricket. He was only 23 when he played his last match, hitting his highest first-class score of 59 and taking 2 for 56 and 3 for 28 to help Western Province to victory against Natal at the end of December 1953.[10]
His father Basil played for Western Province, Oxford University, Hampshire and Transvaal between 1909 and 1923.
See also
References
- ^ Christopher Martin-Jenkins, The Complete Who's Who of Test Cricketers, Rigby, Adelaide, 1983, p. 298.
- ^ South Africa v Australia, Johannesburg 1949–50
- ^ Transvaal v Griqualand West 1950–51
- ^ Wisden 2005, p. 1651.
- ^ England v South Africa, The Oval 1951
- ^ ABC Cricket Book, South Africans Tour 1952–53, ABC, Sydney, 1952, p. 14.
- ^ Wisden 1954, p. 800.
- ^ Australia v South Africa, Brisbane 1952–53
- ^ Tasmania v South Africans 1952–53
- ^ Western Province v Natal 1953–54