Alfred Ewart Hall (23 January 1896 in
Bolton
Bolton ( , locally ) is a town in Greater Manchester in England. In the foothills of the West Pennine Moors, Bolton is between Manchester, Blackburn, Wigan, Bury, Greater Manchester, Bury and Salford. It is surrounded by several towns and vill ...
, Lancashire, England – 1 January 1964 in
The Hill, South Africa) was a South African
cricket
Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...
er who played in seven
Tests
Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to:
* Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities
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* ''Test'' (2014 film) ...
from 1923 to 1931.
Alf Hall's appearances in
first-class cricket
First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...
were limited by his movement between South Africa and his native Lancashire due to business commitments, but he played nine times as a
professional
A professional is a member of a profession or any person who work (human activity), works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the partic ...
for his native county in 1923 and 1924, despite controversy as to whether he was eligible given that he had played for South Africa. However, because Hall's bowling was developed on the matting pitches then used in South Africa, he was not successful in England apart from his first two games when he took a total of sixteen wickets against the two University teams – though he did bowl with deadly effect in
Lancashire League games for
East Lancashire and
Todmorden
Todmorden ( ; ) is a market town and civil parish in the Upper Calder Valley in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England. It is north-east of Manchester, south-east of Burnley and west of Halifax, West Yorkshire, Halifax. In 2011, it had a popul ...
.
Hall was a left-arm fast-medium bowler who could gain a lot of spin from matting pitches, as shown in the 1926–27
Currie Cup
The Currie Cup () is South Africa's premier domestic rugby union competition featuring teams representing either entire provinces or substantial regions within provinces. Although it is the premier domestic competition, four South African franc ...
where he set a record of 52 wickets in six matches, including 14 wickets for 115 runs against
Natal
NATAL or Natal may refer to:
Places
* Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, a city in Brazil
* Natal, South Africa (disambiguation), a region in South Africa
** Natalia Republic, a former country (1839–1843)
** Colony of Natal, a former British colony ( ...
and 11 for 98 against
Border
Borders are generally defined as geography, geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by polity, political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other administrative divisio ...
. With
Buster Nupen
Eiulf Peter "Buster" Nupen (1 January 1902 – 29 January 1977) was a cricketer who played in 17 Test matches for South Africa between 1921–22 and 1935–36. He was born in Norway, lost an eye in a childhood accident, and was shot through bot ...
he formed a deadly attack that allowed Transvaal to sweep the Currie Cup that year and the win five of six games in 1925–26. Hall first played for Transvaal in 1920–21, and established himself the following year by being the equal leading wicket taker with 36 in the 1921–22 Currie Cup.
Though a strain prevented him playing in the First Test against
England in 1922–23, Hall bowled extremely well in the four remaining Tests of the tour and was unlucky not to be rewarded with a series win: he took seven for 63 in the second innings of the Second Test
and despite England winning by one wicket was carried from the field shoulder-high. Hall was not available for South Africa's disastrous tour of England in 1924. The selectors had wanted to pick him, but Lancashire demanded a payment of £130 to release him from his contract with the county.
Business commitments (he worked in the textile industry) again removed Hall from first-class cricket after England's next tour of South Africa in 1927–28, when he bowled very well in one of the two Tests he could spare time for to take nine for 167.
South Africa v England at Old Wanderers in 1928
/ref> Hall only reappeared briefly during England's 1930–31 tour, when with the gradual shift to turf pitches in South Africa he was not successful.
Despite his skill as a bowler, Alf Hall stands as one of the very worst "rabbits" in the history of first-class cricket. Among Test players, only Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
Bhagwat Subramanya Chandrasekhar (informally Chandra; born 17 May 1945) is an Indian former cricketer who played as a leg spinner. Considered among the top echelon of leg spinners, Chandrasekhar along with E.A.S. Prasanna, Bishen Singh Bedi a ...
has a higher ratio of wickets to runs in first-class cricket, and only Hopper Read
Holcombe Douglas "Hopper" Read (28 January 1910 – 5 January 2000) was an English cricketer who played in one Test in 1935.
Biography
Read, who received his nickname from the eccentric leap in his long run-up was regarded as the fastest bowle ...
a lower first-class batting average. Hall reached double figures only three times in his 57 first-class innings.
See also
*
References
External links
*
*
1896 births
1964 deaths
South Africa Test cricketers
South African cricketers
Lancashire cricketers
South African expatriate cricketers in England
Gauteng cricketers
Cricketers from Bolton
Cricketers who have taken five wickets on Test debut
British emigrants to South Africa
{{SouthAfrica-cricket-bio-stub