Lives in Cricket No 42 - Frank and George Mann

96 MCC in South Africa 1948/49 George did not declare as many expected before the start of the final day. He batted on for a further ten minutes, adding a further five runs to his total before the last wicket fell. South Africa slowly knocked off the fifteen-run deficit and there was nothing about their play to suggest that they proposed to do anything other than play out time. They were 187 for three at tea and, with no sign of a roller being prepared to indicate that England were going to be asked to bat again, members of the press box began to write their stories of a dull end to the series. But at 4.15 pm the light roller appeared and everyone began to make calculations before agreeing that England would need to hit 172 runs in the 95 minutes available. While it was possible for England to make the runs in the time allotted, it was also possible for the South African spin bowlers to take all ten wickets if the England batsmen took chances. Hutton hit his first ball for four and Washbrook hooked a short ball for six in the first over, so there was no doubt that England had accepted the challenge. They scored the first fifty runs in 25 minutes before Hutton was stumped and Compton came running out from the pavilion to continue the chase. The bowlers began to panic and bowled the ball wider, then higher, then shorter but wherever it came Compton chased after it with improvised strokes and timing. Washbrook went next at 104 for two and it was George who came running out to join Compton. Twenty runs later and feeling that his own contribution of a mere couple was not enough, George tried to hit ‘Tufty’ Mann out of sight and was caught on the boundary. 50 More wickets fell and at 125 for five, with Compton gone, England risked losing if they continued to try to maintain the pace. They were up with the clock and under George’s captaincy that meant they would go on pressing for a win. Gladwin, the hero of Durban, looked like repeating his success with 15 runs in all directions by all manner of swings before he and Griffith fell to Mann, and at 163 for seven, nineteen runs were needed in twelve minutes with two left-handers at the wicket, Crapp and Watkins, under a sky darkening with rain-clouds. The penultimate over arrived with England needing ten to win. After two easy singles, Crapp came down the wicket like a warrior with a battle-axe and hit the ball past long off for four. He tried to repeat the stroke but this time it was cut off before reaching the boundary. To the seventh ball of the over Crapp hit a short ball with a swing of a cross-bat first bounce to the fence. The two batsmen swept up the stumps and bails and, with arms around one another, ran to the pavilion to celebrate the victory by three wickets. The last word has to be from Arlott: It is long since an English captain has played so large a part in the winning of a Test. Mann had saved the side with his century in the first innings. He had set an example of infallible enthusiasm at mid-on in a team whose high collective standard of fielding had been developed upon his insistence. He had taken the courageous course of going for 50 His batting was such in this innings that John Arlott deployed the celebrated Burnsian phrase ‘a clear case of Mann’s inhumanity to Mann’ after the unrelated N.B.F.Mann (‘Tufty’) had bamboozled him with three consecutive leg-break or googly deliveries. Perhaps it should be said that researchers and authors have attached this phrase to various innings in George’s career, but the detailed reports fit the circumstances of this innings best.