Lives in Cricket No 45 - Brief Candles 2

47 but the old mark of 129 set early in 1926 had been surpassed just the previous November when Tiger Lance and Don Mackay-Coghill (another of Kevin’s Nuffield team-mates of 1957) added 174 for Transvaal against Natal at Johannesburg. That figure of 174 was equalled in 2000/01, but that apart, to date there has been no other partnership of 150 or more for the last wicket in all first-class cricket in South Africa. At the time, Kevin’s partnership was the joint-19th highest last-wicket partnership in all first-class cricket worldwide, and the joint fifth-highest to be recorded by batsmen numbers 10 and 11 30 . The stand got off to a dicey start. The score was still in the 180s when McDonald was missed off ‘a rather difficult chance’ (Diamond Fields Advertiser, hereafter DFA) at leg-slip, and then at 186 either batsman could have been run out when they were both stranded mid-pitch, only for the fielder to ‘throw the ball aimlessly’ (DFA) and send the ball for four overthrows - Kevin’s runs, as he recalls. And understandably, Kevin was nervous at the start of his innings. But once the partnership got going he began to enjoy it, ignoring the attempts of his former team-mates to rattle him verbally. Most of the run-scoring was done by Neville McDonald. His score when the partnership began is not recorded, but he must have been only in single figures. He was a left-handed batsman, who (Kevin told me) liked to give the ball a thump, getting on the front foot and driving through the covers. Kevin says he sheltered him a bit, which seems a little unlikely given the disparity in their respective rates of run-scoring (and the DFA says that McDonald took most of the bowling); but I am in no position to disagree with him! Kevin told me that he too liked to hit through the covers, and a bad ball during their partnership certainly went for four. After 171 minutes the partnership finally came to an end when McDonald reached his century 31 , and as Kevin had already passed his half-century, Palmer declared. According to the Durban Daily News the batsmen slowed down a little as they approached their respective landmarks, with the Griquas trying everything to prevent them reaching these targets. The DFA criticises the home team’s fielding, which became ragged and sometimes lackadaisical; ‘but even all this cannot detract from the outstanding play of McDonald and Martin’. I asked Kevin how he felt when the declaration was made, and whether he might have gone on to a century of his own without it. ‘Oh ja, ja - I was seeing the ball like a football. But we had to declare.’ I also asked if he 30 The stand of 174 in 2000/01 was also recorded by numbers 10 and 11, so the McDonald-Martin partnership is now the second-highest in South Africa to have been made by the last two men in the batting order. 31 This remained far and away Neville McDonald’s highest first-class score. As Kevin told me, he was no batsman - this was just the day on which everything came off. In the following season, McDonald finished 183rd out of 189 players in the South African batting averages, while in his career as a whole he made a total of 188 runs in 14 innings, and only reached double-figures four times in those 14 innings (including the century; his second-highest score was 36 not out). Kevin has lost touch with him over the years, but believes he became a preacher in Pietermaritzburg. His son Duncan played a couple of first-class matches for Natal B in the mid-1990s. Number 11