Lives in Cricket No 45 - Brief Candles 2

46 Number 11 But not for the first of the tourmatches. He was twelfthman at Bloemfontein on 12 February 1966 (‘I was just happy to be in the [squad]’), as Natal B ran up the expected win, by 150 runs, against OFS whose top-scorer in the match was Ewie Cronje (‘Hansie’s dad’), who made 98 in their first innings. And so on to Kimberley for the match against bottom placed Griqualand West, starting on 19 February. For Kevin this was a return to a familiar stamping-ground, though he had never played at the De Beers Stadium in all his time in the city. Now he would have his chance to do so, as he was named in the eleven in place of Seymour, who had made 14, batting at number eight, in his only innings against OFS 28 , and had not bowled. The selectors evidently felt that their bowling attack needed strengthening for the game at Kimberley, despite that fact that their captain Fred Palmer had taken eight wickets at Bloemfontein with his leg-breaks, and a relative new medium-paced opening bowler named Neville McDonald, playing in just his second first-class match, had taken five for 53 in 37 six-ball overs in OFS’s first innings. Kevin was well aware of the distinction that selection for this match - and with it, elevation to the ranks of first-class cricketers - brought him. ‘It was a great honour for me’, he told me, adding modestly, ‘because a lot of players probably as good as I, if not better, didn’t make the grade. There were so many good players in the [Durban] league.’ Griqualand West should have been a soft touch in this match, even for the Natal second eleven. Their last win in a Currie Cup match had been over seven years previously, in December 1958, since when they had played 31 Currie Cup games and two matches against tourist sides without a single victory. So when Natal collapsed to 169 for nine by mid-afternoon on that first day after winning the toss, the home side must have been feeling hopeful that the tide was turning in their favour. The number ten, already at the crease, was Neville McDonald - definitely no great shakes as a batsman, despite a score of 23 in his debut match a month previously. The number 11 joining him was Kevin. The ground on which the match was played may have been new to Kevin, but his opponents were not. Having been brought up in Kimberley he found that ‘there were about six of my school mates playing for Griqualand West’, two of whom - Brian Burrow and Graham Uren - had been fellow- members of the Griquas side in the 1957 Nuffield Week. So they knew that he had genuine batting credentials, and as Kevin said, ‘when they saw me walking in at number 11, they said, “no, Kevin, this is not fair!”’ But no-one was expecting what followed. From 169 for nine the last pair took the score to 323 for nine before Palmer declared, to leave the Griquas half an hour’s batting before the close of play. In hot sun, they added 154 runs in their unbroken last-wicket partnership 29 ; three months earlier this would have been a new South African record for the tenth wicket, 28 It proved to be the only innings, and only match, of Seymour’s first-class career. 29 A figure quite reasonably engraved on Kevin’s heart nearly 50 years later; when I first began to talk with him about the partnership, he joined me in reciting the figure of 154 when I first mentioned it.