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Old Wanderers was a cricket ground in
Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...
,
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 ...
. The ground hosted 22 Test matches from 1895 to 1939, before being rebuilt as Johannesburg's Park Station in 1946. It has since been replaced by the
New Wanderers Stadium The Wanderers Stadium (Imperial Wanderers due to sponsorship reasons and affectionately known as the Bullring due to its intimidating atmosphere) is a stadium situated just south of Sandton in Illovo, Johannesburg in Gauteng Province, South ...
.


History

The wealthy elite of the town saw a need for a sports ground for the public in the new town of Johannesburg. Around 1888 a deputation consisting of
Hermann Eckstein Hermann Ludwig Eckstein (3 August 1847 – 16 January 1893) was a German-born British people, British mining magnate and banker. Life history Born in Hohenheim near Stuttgart, Germany to a Lutheran minister, he received an excellent educati ...
, J.B. Taylor, Jacob Swart, Llewellyn Andersson and others rode to Pretoria to meet with President
Paul Kruger Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger (; 10 October 1825 – 14 July 1904) was a South African politician. He was one of the dominant political and military figures in 19th-century South African Republic, South Africa, and President of the So ...
. He was shown a piece of land of 40 acres west of
Joubert Park Joubert Park is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is located in Region 8. The suburb shares its name with the largest park in the Central Business District, which is located a few blocks from the main train station for the city (known a ...
, but as the land was to be surveyed and sold as leasehold stands, he was concerned about the loss of income to the
South African Republic The South African Republic ( nl, Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, abbreviated ZAR; af, Suid-Afrikaanse Republiek), also known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer Republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when it ...
. A compromise was reached and 31 acres was set aside for a sporting ground with a 99-year lease and 25 pounds a year. The ground was first called Kruger's Park but was later renamed Wanderers Club, with Hermann Eckstein and its first chairman and J.B. Taylor as its vice-chairman. When not used by the club, the grounds would be used as a public venue. It was the venue for the Witwatersrand's first horse show,
gymkhana Gymkhana () ( ur, جِمخانہ, sd, جمخانه, hi, जिमख़ाना, as, জিমখানা, bn, জিমখানা) is a British Raj term which originally referred to a place of assembly. The meaning then altered to den ...
and dog show in May 1891 and with a cycle track around the cricket ground people saw future world cycle champion Laurens Meintjes race. And in November 1894, the Witwatersrand Agricultural Society would hold its first show at the Wanderers ground before moving it to Braamfontein where it would be later known as the
Rand Show The Rand Show, previously known as the Rand Easter Show, is an annual show held in Johannesburg, South Africa, and is the largest consumer exhibition in Southern Africa. It has been an important event in the city for many years, attracting in ...
. The grounds would host its first cricket test match on 2 March 1896 when South Africa played England. The South African sports journalist E. W. Ballantine described the playing surface as it was at the time of the Test match against the touring Australians in 1902:
The ground is a bare tract of land, dark red in colour, and in the centre of the Oval a green patch of cocoanut matting, 8ft. wide, is stretched and nailed down, each end about 6in. from the popping crease and outside it. The surface of the ground is hard, and consequently there is a tendency for the bowling to rise considerably. The fielding is generally true, notwithstanding that the presence of a few small pebbles would occasionally give the ball a little bit of hop. On a hot day the ground is naturally trying to the feet, while the dust, which is always more or less prevalent, has the effect of parching the players' throats ...
By the late 1920s, the station passenger numbers south of the Wanderers grounds had outgrown its facilities. The new station would need additional land which was only available to the north and which was part of the Old Wanderers ground. There was opposition to the idea by the people of Johannesburg when a 100 ft strip of the Wanderers ground was proposed with the South African Railways offering £31,000 and the club wanting the amount doubled. The land was lost to the railways with the final amount settled on was £35,000 In 1936, the club purchased 200 acres in Illovo and established a golf course called Kent Park, name after its chairman Victor Kent. This would later become the venue for the new
Wanderers Stadium The Wanderers Stadium (Imperial Wanderers due to sponsorship reasons and affectionately known as the Bullring due to its intimidating atmosphere) is a stadium situated just south of Sandton in Illovo, Johannesburg in Gauteng Province, South ...
cricket ground. By 1945, the
Johannesburg Park Station Johannesburg Park Station is the central railway station in the city of Johannesburg, South Africa, and the largest railway station in Africa. It is located between the Central Business District and Braamfontein, in the block bordered by Rissik, ...
had reached a capacity of 130,000 passengers a day and there was a need to expand the station's infrastructure with a new station, administrative buildings and a newer bridge over the railway lines and so the ideal land for the project was the Wanderers ground. Transport Minister
F.C. Sturrock FC may refer to: Businesses, organisations, and schools * Fergusson College, a science and arts college in Pune, India * Finncomm Airlines (IATA code) * FranklinCovey company, NYSE stock symbol FC * Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force in Pakis ...
would attempt to sell the project to the public while it was countered by the Wanderers Club and Johannesburg Publicity Association, representing about fifty other bodies. The South African government would
expropriate Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
the Wanderers ground and after a legal appeal by those who disagreed, on 30 March 1946, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court upheld the governments decision. The Government would pay the Wanderers Club £500,000 in compensation and the Johannesburg Council £1,000,000 in the form of land at Plein Square, Kaserne and a small amount of land in Braamfontein and offset £300,000 owed by the council.


Cricket history

The highest Test innings recorded at the ground was
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 ...
's 491 in their 2nd innings in the drawn 2nd Test against
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
in 1935/3
Full Scorecard of South Africa vs Australia 2nd Test 1935 - Score Report , ESPNcricinfo.com
and the lowest was South Africa's 85 in their 2nd innings in the 2nd Test in 1902/03, on the way to losing to Australia by 159 runs ( Jack Saunders taking 7/34)
Full Scorecard of South Africa vs Australia 2nd Test 1902 - Score Report , ESPNcricinfo.com
The ground saw 29 Test
centuries A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. A centennial or ...
, including double centuries for South African
Dudley Nourse Arthur Dudley Nourse (12 November 1910 – 14 August 1981) was a South African Test cricketer. Primarily a batsman, he was captain of the South African team from 1948 to 1951. Early life Nourse was born in Durban, the son of South African T ...
(231) in the drawn 2nd Test against Australia in 1934/3
Full Scorecard of South Africa vs Australia 2nd Test 1935 - Score Report , ESPNcricinfo.com
and Australian captain and opening batsman
Herbie Collins Herbert Leslie Collins (21 January 1888 – 28 May 1959) was an Australian cricketer who played 19 Test matches between 1921 and 1926. An all-rounder, he captained the Australian team in eleven Tests, winning five, losing two with another f ...
(203) in the drawn 2nd Test in 1921/22 (only his 10th Test match, and his 2nd as captain)
Full Scorecard of South Africa vs Australia 2nd Test 1921 - Score Report , ESPNcricinfo.com
George Lohmann George Alfred Lohmann (2 June 1865 – 1 December 1901) was an English cricketer, regarded as one of the greatest bowlers of all time. Statistically, he holds the lowest lifetime Test bowling average among bowlers with more than fifteen wickets ...
's 9/28 at Old Wanderers in the 2nd Test in 1896 was for six decades the best bowling figures in Test cricket, leading to a victory for
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
by an innings and 197 runs
Full Scorecard of South Africa vs England 2nd Test 1896 - Score Report , ESPNcricinfo.com
The best bowling analysis for a Test match at the ground was
Sydney Barnes Sydney Francis Barnes (19 April 1873 – 26 December 1967) was an English professional cricketer who is regarded as one of the greatest bowlers of all time. He was right-handed and bowled at a pace that varied from medium to fast-medium wit ...
's 17/159 for England in the 2nd Test in 1913/14 (8/56 and 9/103) in a victory by England by an innings and 12 run
Full Scorecard of South Africa vs England 2nd Test 1913 - Score Report , ESPNcricinfo.com
The only other bowler to take 8 wickets in an innings at Old Wanderers was
Tip Snooke Sibley John "Tip" Snooke (1 February 1881 – 14 August 1966) played Test cricket for South Africa as an all-rounder, captaining the side to victory 3–2 against England in a five-Test series in South Africa in 1909–10. He played in 26 Test ...
in the 3rd Test against England (and only his third Test match) in 1905/06
Full Scorecard of South Africa vs England 3rd Test 1906 - Score Report , ESPNcricinfo.com
A railways-related test match record at Old Wanderers occurred when South African batsman
Jimmy Sinclair James Hugh Sinclair (16 October 1876 – 23 February 1913) was a South African cricketer who played in 25 Test matches from 1896 to 1911. He scored South Africa's first three Test centuries and was the first person from any country to score a ...
hit the ball for six. It landed in a train standing at one of the platforms at the adjacent old Johannesburg station and was only discovered two days later in Cape Town. At approximately 956 miles, it must rate as the biggest six ever struck.Soul of A Railway, System 7, Western Transvaal, based in Johannesburg, Part 2. Johannesburg between the Home Signals, Part 2. Caption xx.
(Accessed on 21 March 2017)


International Centuries

From 1895 to 1939, twenty nine Test centuries have been scored.


International five-wicket hauls

A total of 40 Test match five-wicket hauls were taken on the ground.


See also

*
List of Test cricket grounds One hundred and twenty-one grounds have hosted Test cricket since the first officially recognised Test match between Australia and England in Melbourne in March 1877. The grounds are listed in the order in which they were first used as a venue f ...


References


External links


Ground profile
from
Cricinfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...
{{coord, -26.197720, 28.040659, type:landmark, display=title Defunct cricket grounds in South Africa Sports venues in Johannesburg Test cricket grounds in South Africa