Lives in Cricket No 32 - Eric Rowan

29 Dudley Nourse then produced the performance of his life, making the then South African record score of 231 in his side’s second innings of 491 and batting for two minutes short of five hours, hitting 36 fours. He so dominated proceedings that Mitchell was the next highest scorer with 45. In fact he made his runs out of 350 scored while he was at the wicket. Louis Duffus called it ‘an innings tempered with wise judgment, aided by luck and overflowing with adventure.’ Eric did not always see eye-to-eye with Nourse, but he did respect his batting skills, especially against spinners. ‘If he could have played fast bowling as well as he did slow he would have been the greatest batsman the world has seen. He was a bit edgy when it came to the quickies.’ To illustrate this he told a story from 1938/39 when he was batting with Nourse and giving Ken Farnes a bit of chat. ‘Dudley came down the wicket and told me to keep quiet or the bowler might kill us’. The Grimmett googly dismissed Eric again in the second innings, again leg before, this time for 13. This was the third time in four innings he had fallen victim to that delivery. Australian Summer Dudley Nourse set the South African record score off 231 against Australia, a record which Eric would break against England in 1951. Eric respected his batting ability, but not his leadership skills. [Bassano Collection]