Day ten began with England in a race against time to catch their ship home
Ship Ahoy! Which is what the England tourists must have cried in March 1939 as they just about made it to Cape Town in time to catch the boat back to Blighty.
But before we come to the ship and why it merits a place in our list, let’s go back a year to the publication of Wisden. Reviewing the 1937 season, the editor of cricket’s bible, Wilfrid Brookes, warned that there ‘exists a danger of the Test Match drifting into a dull, monotonous exhibition’. It noted that the Cricket Commission appointed in 1937 had reported that the matter needed to be addressed otherwise it could have far-reaching and damaging consequences for county cricket. To this end Wisden was pleased that moves were afoot to limit Test matches to a maximum of thirty hours, in other words five days’ duration, as this would increase the ‘chance of a definite result’. The onus was on the Australian Board of Control, as so-called Timeless Tests had been played there from 1883, while in England only a handful of such matches had been played, the first the fifth and final Test against the 1926 touring Australians.
Yet, noted Brookes in his editorial, even as he was writing these words, England’s first two Test matches in South Africa had ended in dull draws. Brookes laid the blame for the situation not so much on the batsmen, though he suggested they could try and be more positive in their stroke-play, but in the ‘artificially prepared wickets’ that made for an unequal contest between bat and ball. ‘It is obvious that the groundmen [sic] in the Union [South Africa] are becoming as proficient as those in England and Australia in the preparation of a perfect wicket,’ he wrote. ‘One may logically assume that unless the work of the groundman is to be controlled the aim to bring about more results by extending the number of days allotted to a Test match will once more be defeated.’
Little did Brookes know that within a matter of weeks all his concerns would be crystallised in a match of mind-numbing longevity.
England went into the fifth and final Test at Durban leading South Africa by 1–0 in the series. After the first two drawn matches alluded to by Brookes in his editorial, England had won the third Test by an innings and 13 runs, thanks to a double century from Eddie Paynter and a seven-wicket haul from Ken Farnes.
With the series still in the balance, therefore, it was decided that the fifth Test would be played to the finish. Big mistake. South Africa batted first and were all out for 530 on the afternoon of the third day. England made 316 in reply, though it took them 117 overs to do so.
South Africa batted again, making 481, therefore leaving England to chase 696 for victory. Len Hutton and Paul Gibb came out to bat but only one ball was possible before bad light brought an end to the sixth day of play.
Day ten began with England in a race against time to catch their ship home
Day seven saw England finish on 253 for the loss of just Hutton. Gibb had poked and prodded his way to a painstaking 78 while Bill Edrich had reached his maiden Test century. Day eight brought rain, and the players sat in their dressing room. One thousand miles south-west in Cape Town the crew of the Athlone Castle started making final preparations for the passage to England.
Play resumed on day nine, and Gibb’s nine-hour stay at the crease ended when he was bowled by Dalton for 120. Edrich was finally dismissed for 219, but England finished on 493 for three.
Day ten, a Tuesday, began with England in a race against time. If they wished to make the Athlone Castle they would have to catch the 8.05 p.m. train from Durban to Cape Town. The batsmen forced the pace, Hammond hitting another century and Paynter contributing 75. But at tea it began raining. The captains consulted, reported Wisden, and there was speculation the game could go into a twelfth day. ‘There was even talk that the squad could go on and leave the two not-out batsmen and the four yet to bat behind to play on, or even that a plane could be chartered to replace the train.’
But in truth, after ten days and forty-six hours of cricket, the players no longer had the will to go on. ‘What all of us felt,’ wrote Bill Edrich, in his autobiography, ‘was that it was an absurdity for any cricket match to go on through ten playing days and two Sundays.’
So the match was abandoned, and the England players hurriedly packed their kit bags and dashed to the train station. They caught the boat in time, and it’s probably fair to assume that after those ten days in Durban, the players’ only exercise during the voyage back home was the stroll to the ship’s bar.
Six months later many of the players would swap cricket whites for military uniform as the Second World War erupted. When Test cricket resumed in 1946 Test matches had been capped to five days.