Lives in Cricket No 32 - Eric Rowan

87 Chapter Ten The Last Hurrah With the South African team off to Australia and New Zealand led by Jack Cheetham and containing a number of untried players, Eric was left behind to lead his Transvaal team in the B Section of the Currie Cup. After their disappointing performance of the previous summer there was much to prove, not least for the captain, who in typical fashion would want to score as many runs as possible, and give one more ‘V sign’ to those administrators who had ended his international career. The domestic season could not have turned out better for the veteran batsman. Transvaal won five of their six B Section games with the only setback being an innings defeat to Border in East London, and won promotion back into the A Section for 1953/54. This loss was one occasion when Eric’s confidence backfired. In Border player Harold Whitfield’s autobiography he described what happened. ‘Our dressing room was adjacent to the Transvaal one and with no ceiling we could hear every word spoken by their captain at their team talk. He told his team the match would be over by lunchtime (on the second day) and they would spend the afternoon at Orient Beach. Ossie Dawson, who was not out overnight, heard this and said to our skipper Buster Hicks, “I’m going to make that bastard eat his words.” Sure enough, Ossie made a magnificent 182 and Border won by an innings and three runs.’ Journalist Peter Martin, who edited Whitfield’s book, was told that before the match Eric had said to Dawson, the only international in the Border team, ‘”Banana Boy (a reference to him coming from Natal) you’re going out for a duck!” Dawson said this also made him even more determined to grind Transvaal into the dust. His 182 was his highest first-class score.’ The Border defeat was the only setback in an outstanding summer. Team success was one thing, but there was also an outstanding personal performance to take pride in. At the age of 43 Eric scored 899 runs at 74.91 in eight matches, passing Dudley Nourse’s record aggregate for a season of 877 set in 1948/49. Along the way Eric (195) set a new South African fourth wicket record of