Posted by Tony Hutton
The first occasion on which I saw a first class cricket match was a very long time ago and despite a rather slow and damp day I was well and truly hooked on what became the habit of a lifetime. The game in question was the fourth Test match of 1947, between England and South Africa at Headingley, Leeds. My interest in the game had already been created by visits to wartime charity games at Roundhay Park, Leeds and then on moving to Huddersfield by following the fortunes of my village club - Lascelles Hall. Up till then I had only read about Yorkshire and England through the press and had even listened in the early hours of the morning to a crackling radio from Australia where England toured in 1946-47.
So to actually go to a Test match, in company with my father and grandfather, was something very special. After a drawn game at Trent Bridge, England had won the next two games at Lord's and Old Trafford fairly easily. Obviously I have only slight memories of the day and am indebted to Ken Dalby's excellent book 'Headingley Test Cricket' to fill in some of the detail. He reports that the South African captain, and star batsman, Alan Melville had mixed feelings on winning the toss after overnight rain, but in the end decided to bat.
He was soon to regret his decision, as when we were settled in our bench seats on the packed western terrace, Melville was clean bowled by Bill Edrich for a duck in only the second over of the game. Edrich who with Compton was in the middle of a wonderful batting season in which they both made well over 3,000 runs, was by no means a regular opening bowler. However, for a shortish man, he could bowl very fast for a few overs with a real tearaway run up. He certainly did the trick here to the delight of the 30,000 crowd.
Sadly this loss of the key player put a real brake on proceedings with South Africa bent on survival. Dyer and Mitchell struggled to add twenty three runs in twenty four overs, before Dyer was caught behind by Godfrey Evans off his Kent colleague Doug Wright's leg spin. Lunch came with the score a measly 34-2 with, as Ken Dalby reports, the scoreboard operators haunted by fears of redundancy.
Bruce Mitchell and Dudley Nourse grafted their way to fifty each before Harold Butler, the Notts paceman playing his first Test clean bowled them both to make the score 125-4. This proved the beginning of the end for South Africa as, after Wright had bowled Viljoen for five, the middle order totally collapsed against the pace of Butler and Edrich. Only spinner 'Tufty' Mann showed much resistance with 29 and South Africa were finally all out for 175 which had taken them 97 overs. Slow stuff indeed.
However the slow rate had little effect on my schoolboy enthusiasm. To see so many great names of the game in the flesh was unbelievable. After tea came the high point of the day when Len Hutton and Cyril Washbrook, the champions of Yorkshire and Lancashire, strode out to open the innings for England. The roar of appreciation which greeted them was incredible. It was Hutton's first Test appearance at Headingley and his home crowd were anxious to see him succeed.
They were not disappointed as the runs soon began to flow and the last hour's play brought a flurry of boundaries, taking the overnight score to 52-0. The following day, when I was not present, there was a capacity crowd of 35,000 with the gates closed. After torrential rain, play was delayed for an hour but the two northerners gave a classic display of bad wicket batsmanship, particularly against the turning ball from spinners Athol Rowan and Mann. They put on 141 before Washbrook was bowled by Mann for 76.
Hutton went on his own imperturbable way to a magnificent century which had taken four and a half hours with only eight fours. He immediately slipped out of his crease and was run out for exactly 100. Edrich made 43, Compton 30 and skipper Norman Yardley 36 before he declared with England 317-7. It had taken them 154 overs of which Athol Rowan bowled 46, taking 1-89 and 'Tufty' Mann bowled 50 overs, taking 4-68.
On day three of this scheduled four day match, England bowled out the visitors for 184 with three more wickets for Harold Butler and another 50 from Dudley Nourse. However the star of the proceedings turned out to be Liverpool dentist, Ken Cranston, who managed to extract four tail end wickets in just one over to finish with 4-12. Hutton and Washbrook hit off the 47 runs to win with Hutton finishing the match in style with a six.
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