Louis George Duffus (13 May 1904 in Melbourne,

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– 24 July 1984 in Johannesburg, South Africa) 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 became the country's most respected writer on the game.

Life and career

Duffus was educated in Johannesburg, where he gained a Bachelor of Commerce degree at

Witwatersrand University The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( or ). The university ...

by part-time study. He was a fine athlete and baseballer, as well as a cricketer. A right-handed batsman and occasional wicket-keeper, he played in five first-class 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, ...

between 1923/24 and 1934/35. He played in a trial match to select the South African tour of England in 1929, but was not chosen. Duffus quit his junior accountancy position with the Victoria Falls and Transvaal Power Company in Johannesburg in 1929 to accompany the South African cricket team on their tour of England in the hope of earning enough money from freelance reporting to pay for the trip. He was so successful that by the time he returned to South Africa he was employed as a full-time sports journalist. Thereafter, until South Africa were barred from Test cricket some forty years later as a result of apartheid, he hardly missed a Test match in which they were involved. He covered more than one hundred in all. His '' Wisden'' obituary described him as "conscientious, generous and very fair, with a delightful manner and a nice turn of phrase"."Obituaries in 1984"
'' Wisden'' 1985, p. 1192. During the 1935 South African tour of England he was summoned from the press box to field as a substitute against

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. He caught Dyson at slip, which helped in ensuring the tourists' victory in front of a large

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crowd. He was proud that ''Wisden'' mentioned this in its match report. He served as a war correspondent in the Mediterranean for the duration of World War II.Michael Melford, "Louis Duffus", '' The Cricketer'', Winter Annual 1984, pp. 56–57. He compiled and edited Volume 3 of the official history of South African cricket, covering the years from 1927 to 1947. He also wrote on rugby union, tennis, golf and women's hockey, among other sports. He was the sports editor of the ''Johannesburg Star''. He was married in

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, England, in 1932.Duffus, ''Cricketers of the Veld'', p. 98. He achieved a degree of fame in the medical world in 1970 when, though a haemophiliac, he had a hip operation in Oxford.

Bibliography

*''Cricketers of the Veld'', Sampson Low, Marston & Company, 1946 *''Beyond the Laager'', Hurst & Blackett, 1947 (on South Africans' experiences during the war) *''South African Cricket 1927–1947, Volume 3'', The South African Cricket Association, 1948. *''Springbok Glory'', Longmans, 1955 *''Champagne Cricket'' (on the Australian tour of South Africa, 1966–67) *''When Springboks Leap the Net: The Dramatic History of South Africa in Davis Cup Tennis'', privately published, 1968 *''Play Abandoned: An Autobiography'', Timmins, 1969,

References

External links

Cricinfo profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Duffus, Louis 1904 births 1984 deaths University of the Witwatersrand alumni Cricket historians and writers South African cricketers Gauteng cricketers South African journalists South African people of Australian descent South African war correspondents 20th-century journalists People with haemophilia War correspondents of World War II Australian emigrants to South Africa