Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

119 The Test Player Pietermaritzburg at five o’clock in the morning he was still sufficiently spry to take five for 38 against Natal ‘in weather anything but invigorating’ ( Wisden ) and with a bright knock of 37 help MCC to a lead of 162; but rain thereafter ruined the contest. The two teams then moved to Durban, from matting to a turf wicket, 226 but that made little difference as Astill had another five victims (for four runs more) in a match again left drawn very much in MCC’s favour. In two fixtures against the stronger Transvaal and one against a South African XI he took only two wickets at a combined cost of 164; but a quickly made score of 66 and a share of a sixth-wicket partnership of 135 with Hammond to spare MCC’s blushes after conceding a deficit at Johannesburg doubtless confirmed his selection for the first Test on the same ground. This match, either side of Christmas, was Geary’s great triumph (12 for 130) and a harsh introduction to cricket at this level for Astill. Batting at No.8 after the preceding three men had all been dismissed for ducks, he narrowly escaped immediate dismissal when his first ball hit the shoulder of the bat before dropping between wicketkeeper and point. He then struggled to seven before being caught at the wicket off the puzzling and varied, though somewhat erratic, spinner H.L.E.Promnitz, South Africa’s most successful bowler. He was himself called up to bowl only as fourth change and took no wicket, but it was a match dominated by fast bowling and he at least worried Cameron and kept the batsmen fairly quiet, conceding only eleven runs in eight overs the first time round and 17 in six the second. Thus ended his first foray into Test cricket, just over two months before his fortieth birthday. Some years before Hendren, admitting 226 According to The Times (4 December 1927), this was the first time that any overseas team had played on a turf wicket in South Africa Inseparable. Astill and Geary hitch a ride on a Zulu-powered ‘taxi’.