Neville Anthony Quinn (21 February 1908 – 5 August 1934) was a

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 12

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) ...

for

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

from 1929 to 1931–32.

Early cricket career

A left-handed lower-order batsman and a left-arm medium fast bowler, Quinn played

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 ...

for Griqualand West from the 1927–28 season. The following season, in only his third first-class game, he took eight

Border Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders c ...

first-innings wickets for 37 runs, and this remained his best innings bowling performance. He followed that with six for 19 in 24 overs against

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, ...

in the next match, and that secured his place on the 1929 South African tour to England.

Tour to England

He made his Test debut on the tour to England in 1929. He found the bowling conditions of a dry English summer suited his swing bowling, and played in four of the five Tests. He took 6–92 in England's first innings in the Third Test at Headingley, the only 5-wicket haul in his short Test career, and came second in the tourists'

bowling average In cricket, a player's bowling average is the number of runs they have conceded per wicket taken. The lower the bowling average is, the better the bowler is performing. It is one of a number of statistics used to compare bowlers, commonly use ...

s behind

Tuppy Owen-Smith Harold Geoffrey Owen Owen-Smith (18 February 1909 – 28 February 1990), known as Tuppy Smith, was a South African cricketer who played Test cricket for South Africa and a rugby player who played for and captained the England rugby union team. ...

. Quinn played in one Test of the series at home against England in 1930–31, the drawn Third Test at

Durban Durban ( ) ( zu, eThekwini, from meaning 'the port' also called zu, eZibubulungwini for the mountain range that terminates in the area), nicknamed ''Durbs'',Ishani ChettyCity nicknames in SA and across the worldArticle on ''news24.com'' from ...

which was dominated by the English bowlers, and then toured to Australia and New Zealand in 1931–32, also finishing second in the tourists' bowling averages, this time behind

Sandy Bell Alexander John Bell (15 April 1906 – 1 August 1985) was a South African cricketer who played in 16 Test cricket, Test matches from 1929 to 1935. Bell was a tail-end right-handed batsman and a right-arm fast-medium bowler. He made his first-cl ...

. He dismissed

Donald Bradman Sir Donald George Bradman, (27 August 1908 – 25 February 2001), nicknamed "The Don", was an Australian international cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time. Bradman's career Test batting average of 99.94 has bee ...

for only 2 in the Third Test in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, the only time Bradman was out for less than 100 in that series. Bradman wrote later: "In the First Test, Neville Quinn ... had me sorely puzzled, and I was missed off him twice in my innings, then went on to make 226 ... Quinn worried me more than any of their bowlers, and appeared to come off the pitch faster than any medium fast bowler I have met in this country with the possible exception of

Maurice Tate Maurice William Tate (30 May 1895 – 18 May 1956) was an English cricketer of the 1920s and 1930s and the leader of England's Test bowling attack for a long time during this period. He was also the first Sussex cricketer to take a wicket with ...

." The matches on the Australasian tour proved to be his last Test cricket. He died suddenly at the age of 26 of

heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, a ...

. He had been a habitual sleepwalker. W. H. Ferguson, ''Mr Cricket'', Nicholas Kaye, London, 1957, pp. 91–92. His older brother

Michael Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian an ...

played

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 ...

in 1931–32.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Quinn, Neville 1908 births 1934 deaths South African cricketers South Africa Test cricketers Griqualand West cricketers Gauteng cricketers