Lives in Cricket No 27 - CB Llewellyn

36 Triumph in South Africa grounds that he is a professional cricketer and therefore debarred by the laws of the South African Cricket Association’. When that body met at Port Elizabeth on 4 April 1903 to debate the matter, Frank Mitchell put the case for Transvaal and Llewellyn, their would-be amateur. Mitchell was a famous sportsman, a Cambridge triple-blue and England rugby and cricket international, who was by that time one of Abe Bailey’s ‘secretaries’. Mitchell tried to get round the objections by submitting that, although Buck was a professional in England, this was not the case in South Africa, although he was paid to work at The Wanderers, and that after one more season in England, he would return to settle permanently in the land of his birth. Llewellyn attended to answer questions, but the representatives present upheld, by a majority of three to two, the complaint of Western Province. Natal, who were at that time not competitors in the Currie Cup, were not represented at the hearing. The decision cannot have come as a great surprise to Mitchell or Bailey; Llewellyn was a professional in England and was known to be returning to the United Kingdom for the 1903 cricket season. It must have been dispiriting for Buck to recall that there were factions at the Cape who wanted to put a damper on his career, even after his performances in their Test matches. So far as one can tell, he returned to Britain for the 1903 season and he never went back to South Africa, even though he later played ten Tests for his home country.