Lennox Sydney Brown (24 November 1910 – 1 September 1983) 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 two

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in 1931–32. Len Brown was a right-handed lower-order batsman and a right-arm fast-medium bowler who turned to bowling leg-breaks and googlies later in his career. His

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 one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

career began with two matches 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 1930–31 English touring team and he took seven wickets in his first match, including

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 ...

and

Percy Chapman Arthur Percy Frank Chapman (3 September 1900 – 16 September 1961) was an English cricketer who captained the England cricket team between 1926 and 1931. A left-handed batsman, he played 26 Test matches for England, captaining the side in 17 o ...

twice each. He was then picked, as the youngest member of the team, for the 1931–32 tour to Australia and New Zealand. Brown was rarely part of the touring team's first eleven in the major matches, but after a bad showing in the first Test match, which was lost by an innings and 163 runs, he played in a non-first-class match against a New South Wales Country XI and, bowling throughout the Country XI's first innings, took five wickets for 57 runs, with another couple of wickets in the second innings. That led to his call-up to the Test team for the second match of the series. The result, though, was almost identical to the first game – defeat by an innings and 155 runs – and Brown took only one wicket at a cost of 100 runs. He also scored 2 and 8 in his two innings. He played in only a few of the other matches on the tour until the South Africans crossed to New Zealand where, in a less taxing series, he was recalled for the second Test match against the New Zealanders, the first game having been won by an innings. In this second (and last) Test of his career, Brown took a single wicket in each innings and scored 7 in the South Africans' only completed innings. Brown played regularly for Transvaal in 1932–33 and the season included his best first-class bowling performance, six wickets for 30 runs in the match between Transvaal and a team representing the "Rest of South Africa". But he then left South African domestic cricket for three seasons and he was not selected for the 1935 tour to England. Instead, Brown played as a professional for

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in the Lancashire League for the 1935 and 1936 seasons. He returned to South Africa in 1936–37, playing for Transvaal in that season and in 1945–46, for

North Eastern Transvaal Northerns (formerly North Eastern Transvaal and Northern Transvaal) has played first-class cricket in South Africa since December 1937. Its territory is the area north of Johannesburg, and it includes Pretoria. For the purposes of the SuperSport ...

from 1937 to 1940 and for

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 ...

from 1946 to 1948; he continued to take wickets and, after his stint in League cricket, his batting had improved, but he was not picked for any further representative matches. He later worked as the sports editor for the ''

Rhodesia Herald ''The Herald'' is a state-owned daily newspaper published in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. History Origins The newspaper's origins date back to the 19th century. Its forerunner was launched on 27 June 1891 by William Fairbridge for the Ar ...

''.

Brian Bassano Brian Sidney Bassano (born in East London, Cape Province, Union of South Africa, on 21 March 1936, died in Launceston, Tasmania, on 10 July 2001) was a South African journalist and cricket historian. Life and career After some years in England, ...

, ''Cricketer'', November 1983, p. 39.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Lennox 1910 births 1983 deaths People from Randfontein South African people of British descent South Africa Test cricketers South African cricketers Gauteng cricketers Northerns cricketers Rhodesia cricketers Sportspeople from Gauteng