Bournemouth. Thousands of people greeted the players when they arrived at Cardiff General shortly after 11pm; had the match been played at St Helen’s instead of Bournemouth then half of Wales would have tried to get in. But then half of Wales wanted to attend the matches against the tourists over the Whitsun and August holidays, as John Arlott discovered when cricket resumed in 1946. The Indians came to South Wales in June, to be greeted by miserable weather. “A long crowd waited patiently outside the gates at Cardiff on Saturday morning while rain fell steadily,” wrote Arlott. “Play started in the afternoon, under grey skies and the threat of more rain. The game was watched by a large crowd inside the ground, and a smaller, but more comfortable, group of spectators who brought armchairs and their tea on to the balconies of the flats that overlook the ground.” They saw a mixture of the exotic and the workaday, an unbeaten hundred from Amarnath and more runs from Merchant, Mankad and Hazare. Glamorgan, following on, just managed to avoid defeat against the spin of Sarwate and Mankad. “To see Emrys Davies and Arnold Dyson come out to open the innings is to be reminded of two artisans going out to dig a well or thatch a house,” said Arlott, in an assured reminder that all was good and cricket was as it should be after the war. During this match Peter Judge made a king pair, being bowled by successive deliveries from Sarwate. He was last man out when Glamorgan were dismissed and to save time when they followed on, the last wicket pair Clay and Judge remained at the wicket to start the second innings. Judge, who began as an amateur with Middlesex and then became a professional with Glamorgan, was out to the first ball of the second innings. The weather was much better on August Bank Holiday Monday, when 25,000 went to the match at Swansea: “some came early to get a seat and then stood on it to see the play: the rugby grandstand was full up to a hundred yards from the boundary of the cricket field: uncounted dozens came in over the wall and hundreds turned from the closed gates to the seaside.” Clay (seven for 72) bowled Glamorgan to a 35-run lead on the first innings; his declaration set India a target of 273 and they got them for the loss of five wickets after fine batting from Mushtaq Ali and Hazare. In 1947 the South Africans pulled in the crowds at Cardiff and Swansea, winning the Whitsuntide match by an innings, Bruce Mitchell and Athol Rowan getting hundreds and Tufty Mann thrashing 97 in 55 minutes, and the St Helen’s return by 40 runs, despite some splendid bowling by Clay (11-162). A masterly 100 from Tony Harris was the mainstay of the Springboks’ batting. Whit Monday 1949 found 17,000 at Cardiff, Wooller and Parkhouse being among the runs against the New Zealanders. On the August Saturday, 20,000 watched Mervyn Wallace make a big hundred for the tourists at Swansea but 14,000 saw only 18 minutes’ play on Monday. Glamorgan collapsed against Cresswell’s off breaks on a drying pitch when the crowd was admitted free for two hours’ cricket on Tuesday. Such gates paled before August Bank Holiday Monday in 1950 when the all-conquering West Indians arrived. Whitsun at Cardiff had seen the tourists win by an innings, Frank Worrell and Everton Weekes making runs and Hines Johnson and Sonny Ramadhin taking wickets. At Swansea in August the West Indies were dismissed for 211, when nobody could do much against Emrys Davies and Wooller, who bowled at a pace slower than usual. On Monday a record crowd of 32,000 saw Jones (105, including a colossal six on to the rugby stand) and Parkhouse (88) add 132 for the third wicket. Sonny Ramadhin took Tourist Trade 172