Lives in Cricket No 27 - CB Llewellyn

11 Chapter Two Onward and Upward Left-handed with bat and ball, Buck ran through the junior ranks of white cricketers, accomplishing some remarkable performances on the way; in March 1894, while still only 17, he took seven wickets of the Durban Inter-town Junior XI, leading to the victory of his Pietermaritzburg team. Even more memorable was his nine wickets for five runs for Zingari ‘A’ against Garrison. In January 1895 for the Witness Cricket Club against N.G. Asylum his match return was twenty-one overs and a ball, thirteen maidens, twelve runs, thirteen wickets. His performances led him into senior club cricket for Zingari, and his success continued at representative level as he claimed five wickets for 10 runs in helping Colonial-born defeat Home- born. Soon the cricket correspondent of the Natal Witness was expressing his delight that Buck should be selected to play for Natal against Transvaal in the Currie Cup, his first first-class match, at the Pietermaritzburg Oval in March 1895. The contrast with Hendricks, who had made his way with equal success through performances for coloured sides, could not be greater. It was Natal’s second season in the Currie Cup and their fortunes were mixed. Transvaal went into their second innings needing 203 to win, but were still 17 short when their ninth wicket fell. The last man had to bat one-handed because of injury, but at the other end was that great prospect Jimmy Sinclair, who ensured that his side scraped home; Llewellyn, the other eighteen-year-old on view, was not disgraced. In addition to hitting up 24 at his first attempt and nought at his second, he followed one wicket for 32 in Transvaal’s first innings with three for 39, opening the bowling, when the visitors were set that target of 203. A year later, Buck’s performance for a Pietermaritzburg XV against Lord Hawke’s first touring team, when he captured seven wickets in the match, and for a Natal XV a few days later, led to his selection, at the age of 19, for the full South African side to play in against the tourists at Johannesburg. C.B.Fry, who played for the visitors, described him as ‘a boy left-hander’. This and