Sydney Harry Curnow (16 December 1907 – 28 July 1986) 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 seven

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) ...

in the 1930–31 and 1931–32 seasons. He was born in Benoni,

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, ...

and died at

Perth, Western Australia Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

, having emigrated there in the early 1970s. His father was W. S. Curnow, a South African mining engineer, and his mother was a Miss Francis McAuliffe who came from

Launceston, Tasmania Launceston () or () is a city in the north of Tasmania, Australia, at the confluence of the North Esk and South Esk rivers where they become the Tamar River (kanamaluka). As of 2021, Launceston has a population of 87,645. Material was copied ...

Test cricket

Curnow was a right-handed opening batsman. He made his first-class debut for

in 1928–29. In his third first-class match, the first of the 1929–30 season, he hit 99 against

Natal NATAL or Natal may refer to: Places * Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, a city in Brazil * Natal, South Africa (disambiguation), a region in South Africa ** Natalia Republic, a former country (1839–1843) ** Colony of Natal, a former British colony ...

. He followed this up with 108 in the next match, which was against

Griqualand West Griqualand West is an area of central South Africa with an area of 40,000 km2 that now forms part of the Northern Cape Province. It was inhabited by the Griqua people – a semi-nomadic, Afrikaans-speaking nation of mixed-race origin, wh ...

. Then in his third match of the season he made 162 against

Orange Free State The Orange Free State ( nl, Oranje Vrijstaat; af, Oranje-Vrystaat;) was an independent Boer sovereign republic under British suzerainty in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeat ...

. There was no Test cricket in South Africa that season, but the following year,

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toured, and Curnow made an unbeaten 83 in an early-season match against the touring side. That led to his selection for the first Test match of the five-game series, but he was not a success, scoring just 13 and 8. He was dropped for the second Test, but reappeared in the

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 ...

side for the third and fourth Tests. In the first of these games he made 2 and 9; in the second, his scores were 7 and 12. He was dropped for the fifth Test, having scored just 51 runs in six innings in his first series. Despite this modest record, he was picked for the South African tour to Australia and New Zealand in 1931–32, and decent scores in warm-up matches brought him back to the Test team for the first game of the five-match series. Again, he was not successful, scoring 11 and 8 – the second innings 8 taking him 71 minutes against the wiles of the 49-year-old

Bert Ironmonger Herbert Ironmonger (7 April 1882 – 31 May 1971) was an Australian cricketer. He played Test cricket from 1928 to 1933, playing his last Test at the age of 50. He is the second-oldest Test cricketer. Life and career Before World War I Ironmo ...

, who took nine wickets in the match. Dropped for the second Test, he came back into favour after an innings of 158 in a non-first-class game against a Victoria Country XI where, despite the doubtful calibre of the opposition bowling attack, the other South African front-line batsmen failed. That brought him back into the Test team for the third Test and at last, in his fifth Test match, he made some runs, scoring 47 in the first innings and 9 in the second: the 47 would prove to be his best Test score. The success was fleeting: in the fourth Test, he was out for 20 and 3. The fifth game of the series was Curnow's last-ever Test appearance and one of the most remarkable Tests of all time: a "timeless" match, spread out, because of bad weather, over three days but amounting in all to only five hours and 33 minutes of cricket, in which South Africa were dismissed in the first innings for 36 all out and then for 45 all in the second innings. Perversely, Curnow emerged from the match with some credit: his second innings 16, following a first innings 3, was South Africa's highest score of the match and the only double-figure score of the second innings (

Jock Cameron Jock Cameron (born Horace Brakenridge Cameron and often known as "Herbie" Cameron; 5 July 1905 – 2 November 1935) was a South African cricketer of the 1920s and 1930s. A tragic figure owing to his premature death when probably the best wick ...

had scored 11 in the first innings). Ironmonger took 11 wickets in the match and

Clarrie Grimmett Clarence Victor "Clarrie" Grimmett (25 December 1891 – 2 May 1980) was a New Zealand-born Australian cricketer. He is thought by many to be one of the finest early spin bowlers, and usually credited as the developer of the flipper. Early li ...

, who had taken 33 wickets in the first four games of the series, did not even get to bowl. The South African team moved on from Australia to play matches in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, including two Tests, but Curnow was not picked for any of the games there.

Later career

After the tour to Australia and New Zealand, Curnow was a part-time and domestic-only cricketer, restricted to a few appearances each season always around the Christmas period. On his return to domestic cricket in South Africa in 1932–33 he had his most successful season, with 641 runs in four matches and a

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

of 91.57. In the first match of the season for Transvaal against

Western Province Western Province or West Province may refer to: *Western Province, Cameroon *Western Province, Rwanda *Western Province (Kenya) *Western Province (Papua New Guinea) *Western Province (Solomon Islands) *Western Province, Sri Lanka *Western Provinc ...

he made an unbeaten 192 to lead his team to a six-wickets victory after they had been 156 behind on the first innings. Then a week later in a first-class match between North and South he made 224, the highest score of his career. But he was less successful in 1933–34 and 1934–35, failing to pass 50 in either season and he did not feature in the 1935 tour to England. He continued to play sporadically through to 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 ...

, making centuries in three of the four seasons between 1936 and 1940, with a further century in a wartime first-class match in 1942–43. When more normal cricket resumed in 1945–46, he played three further games for Transvaal, but with limited success, and those were his final games in first-class cricket.

References

1907 births 1986 deaths Sportspeople from Benoni Cricketers from Gauteng South Africa Test cricketers South African cricketers Gauteng cricketers South African emigrants to Australia {{SouthAfrica-cricket-bio-stub