Lives in Cricket No 34 - Frank Mitchell

91 and maybe again an ambition to pursue a journalistic career. However the suggested match did not take place. His use of the word ‘Colonial’ may be an indication of yearning for imperial times. Then came an announcement that was to generate a career changing moment for Frank Mitchell. The current South African captain, who had led the team in Australia, was Percy Sherwell. He had first captained his country in 1905/6 when South Africa defeated England by one wicket in the opening Johannesburg Test, and he with A.D.Nourse had put on 45 undefeated runs for the last wicket in one of the greatest of Test finishes. Sherwell had first claim on the South African captaincy for the Triangular Tour but in October he announced that he was unable to tour. He had an important job in the mining industry and unlike many English amateurs did not have the family wealth to enable him to move in and out of employments, or to have no employment, without concern. There was no obvious successor to Sherwell. Cricket speculated on three other possible candidates – Aubrey Faulkner, who was an outstanding South African cricketer and who had done very well in England in 1907, J.H.Sinclair, and S.J.Snooke, a previous captain of South Africa when England toured his country in 1909/10. Mitchell was not mentioned in that particular speculation but he was in a list of 60 nominations for three trial matches to be held in Johannesburg very late in the year. However Mitchell played in none of those games. Two games were in matches captained by L.J.Tancred and P.T.Lewis. The captains of the middle match were Archie Difford and C.O.C.Pearse. So the initial favourites for the captaincy seemed to be Tancred and Lewis. In the first of their two matches Lewis’s team had much the better of a drawn match, and in the second game Tancred’s team had a very comfortable innings victory. 1911 came to an end without a decision on the 1912 captaincy. That decision would be made early in 1912. South African residence, 1905 - 1911