Wardle's Match

posted by John Winn

Today marks the 97th anniversary of the birthday of one of Yorkshire and England's greatest spin bowlers, Johnny Wardle, born Ardsley on the 8th of January 1923. How appropriate then, that the day after England's thrilling victory at Cape Town, their first at that most beautiful of grounds since January 1957, that we should recall the deeds of the architect of that victory 63 years ago, JH Wardle.

England under the captaincy of Peter May came into what was the second match of the series already one up after a comfortable victory in the 'Christmas Test' at Johannesburg. Trevor Bailey had been England's most potent bowler in that test with ten wickets but Wardle was to go two better at Newlands. The second test began on New Year's Day and largely thanks to a century by Cowdrey with help from Evans, the pair put on 93 in 85 minutes, England reached 369 in their first innings. Maclean and Waite were the main scorers in South Africa's reply but with nobody reaching fifty they fell 164 short of England's score. May did not enforce the follow on. Good scores from Compton and Cowdrey enabled PBH to set a target of 385 in 8 hours for victory. Captained by the ultra defensive Jackie McGlew  South Africa made no effort to go for victory and with McGlew and Keith out before the close on the fourth day, defeat seemed a formality and so it proved with England needing only ninety minutes play to take the final eight wickets. Wardle finished with seven for 36 giving him match figures of 12 for 89.

The match produced its share of curiosities not least the dismissal of Endean in South Africa's second innings for 'handled the ball' the first such occurrence of that type of dismissal in test cricket. A
delivery from Wardle looped up off Endean's pad and fearing that it might land on his stumps he palmed it away.(see right)  A nice addendum to this incident is that Endean was the keeper when Len Hutton was given out for 'Obstructing the Field' at The Oval in 1951.

England drew the third test at Durban but lost narrowly at Johannesburg and by 58 runs at Port Elizabeth to leave the rubber shared. Wardle missed the fifth test because of a knee injury and was to play only one more test, against West Indies at Lord's in 1957. The reasons for that are a story for another day.