Eric Quail Davies (26 August 1909 – 11 November 1976) was a South African

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er who played in five

Test matches Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to: * Test cricket * Test match (indoor cricket) * Test match (rugby union) * Test match (rugby league) * Test match (association football) ...

from 1936 to 1939. He was born in

King William's Town Qonce, formerly known as King William's Town, is a city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa along the banks of the Buffalo River. The city is about northwest of the Indian Ocean port of East London. Qonce, with a population of around ...

and died in

Port Alfred A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ha ...

, both in

Cape Province The Province of the Cape of Good Hope ( af, Provinsie Kaap die Goeie Hoop), commonly referred to as the Cape Province ( af, Kaapprovinsie) and colloquially as The Cape ( af, Die Kaap), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequen ...

. Davies was a left-handed tail-end batsman and a right-arm fast bowler with a short first-class cricket career spread over many seasons. He first appeared for Eastern Province in three matches in the 1929–30 season and took four wickets for 36 against

Rhodesia Rhodesia (, ), officially from 1970 the Republic of Rhodesia, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the ''de facto'' successor state to the British colony of S ...

in the third of these. He then played just one match in 1930–31 and a further single game in 1934–35, with little success in either.

Test cricket

In 1935–36, the Australians toured South Africa and with the season half over played a first-class match against Eastern Province. The Australians won the game easily by an innings inside two days, but Davies scored a personal success by taking six Australian wickets for 80 runs in the Australian innings. That led to his selection for the fourth Test of the five-match series; the game was a crushing defeat inside two days for the South Africans, but Davies performed well, taking four Australian wickets for 75 runs in the touring team's only innings. Davies retained his place for the fifth Test where the result was a similarly heavy defeat, though South Africa batted better and the match lasted to the fourth day; Davies, however, was not successful and failed to take a wicket. After this flurry of cricket activity, Davies played in only one match in 1936–37 and none at all the following season. But in 1938–39 he had an almost identical experience to 1935–36, turning out in a single first-class match for a provincial side against the touring team, doing well and then being inserted into the Test team. This time, he played for

Transvaal Transvaal is a historical geographic term associated with land north of (''i.e.'', beyond) the Vaal River in South Africa. A number of states and administrative divisions have carried the name Transvaal. * South African Republic (1856–1902; af, ...

against the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) team, and took six wickets for 82 runs in the tourists' only innings. He also "felled" the England opening batsman

Len Hutton Sir Leonard Hutton (23 June 1916 – 6 September 1990) was an English cricketer. He played as an opening batsman for Yorkshire County Cricket Club from 1934 to 1955 and for England in 79 Test matches between 1937 and 1955. ''Wisden Cricketer ...

with the third ball of the innings. His subsequent selection in the Test team for the first game of a five-match series may have looked inspired when he took the wicket of

Bill Edrich William John Edrich (26 March 1916 – 24 April 1986) was a first-class cricketer who played for Middlesex County Cricket Club, Middlesex, Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), Norfolk County Cricket Club, Norfolk and England cricket team, England. Ed ...

in the first over of the first Test, but it proved to be his only wicket of the game. It was not much different in the second game of the series: Davies took one wicket, that of

Wally Hammond Walter Reginald Hammond (19 June 1903 – 1 July 1965) was an English first-class cricketer who played for Gloucestershire in a career that lasted from 1920 to 1951. Beginning as a professional, he later became an amateur and was appointed cap ...

, but Hammond had made 181 by that time and England's total reached 559 before they declared, though the match ended as a draw. And there was a third single wicket for Davies in the third match, and this time his 15 eight-ball overs went for 106 runs. He was dropped from the Test team after this match and did not play international cricket again. In fact, he played very little further first-class cricket: in the ad hoc cricket of the 1945–46 season in South Africa, with no official tournaments organised for the first season after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he turned out three times for North-Eastern Transvaal and those were his final first-class games. Outside cricket, he was a schoolmaster.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Davies, Eric 1909 births 1976 deaths Sportspeople from Qonce South African people of Welsh descent South Africa Test cricketers South African cricketers Eastern Province cricketers Northerns cricketers Gauteng cricketers