Arthur Lennox Ochse
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Arthur Lennox Ochse (11 October 1899 in
Graaff-Reinet Graaff-Reinet is a town in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. It is the oldest town in the province. It is also the sixth-oldest town in South Africa, after Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Simon's Town, Paarl and Swellendam. The town was the c ...
,
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– 5 May 1949 in
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) 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 three
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in 1927–28 and 1929.


Cricket career

Ochse was a lower-order right-handed batsman and a right-arm fast bowler. He played intermittently and sometimes effectively for Eastern Province from 1921–22 to the end of the 1920s and then reappeared in two further domestic seasons in 1931–32 and 1937–38. He first came to notice by taking the last six wickets for 60 runs in a heavy defeat of
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 ...
in 1924–25. In 1927–28, when an English team toured, he was picked for a South African XI in a non-Test first-class match against the touring team and took three wickets. That performance did not get him into the Test team, but when Eastern Province played a first-class match with MCC in early January, Ochse took five wickets for 31 runs as the tourists were dismissed in their first innings for just 49; they recovered to win the match by 10 wickets courtesy of an unbroken second-innings opening stand of 187.
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 ...
had lost the first two Tests of the series, and Ochse was called into the side for the third match. But on a batsman's wicket at
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he was expensive and did not take a wicket; in the second England innings, he did not bowl at all. He was dropped from the Test team after this single match and did not play again in the 1927–28 season. In the 1928–29 season, Ochse played only one first-class game for Eastern Province against the perennially weak Orange Free State side; in taking four for 40 and then six for 37, he achieved both the best innings and best match figures of his cricket career. The bowling led to his selection for the 1929 South African tour of England. In 1929, Ochse had a mixed tour. ''
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...
'', reviewing the tour as a whole, said that the South Africans "laboured under a disadvantage in being without a fast bowler of real class". It went on: "Ochse worked hard but his limitations were somewhat pronounced." His bowling "was often very erratic". The lack of control and consistency showed in the overall first-class cricket figures, where Ochse was the most expensive of the regular bowlers on the tour, taking just 52 wickets at an average of 34.51 and conceding runs at more than three an over, expensive by contemporary standards; he also failed to take more than four wickets in any single innings. Conversely, though he was selected only for two Test matches, Ochse's figures in the Tests bore comparison with those of his colleagues, who were also badly treated by
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 ...
's batsmen; Ochse finished top of the Test bowling averages with 10 wickets at 31.70 apiece. In the first Test, he took four first-innings wickets for 79 and followed that with two for 88 in the second innings, when only four England wickets fell. This was his best Test performance. In the second Test, he was wicketless but economical in England's first innings, but took four in the second innings, though his 20 overs, none of them maidens, cost 99 runs. ''
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'' reported that Ochse was "very severely treated" by
Maurice Leyland Maurice Leyland (20 July 1900 – 1 January 1967) was an English international cricketer who played 41 Test matches between 1928 and 1938. In first-class cricket, he represented Yorkshire County Cricket Club between 1920 and 1946, scoring over ...
and
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 ...
, both of whom scored centuries; it went on: "They drove his over-pitched balls as if he were a slow bowler, and when he dropped short their cutting was capable of beating the deep third man." Ochse was dropped from the Test team after this and did not play Test cricket again. Back in South Africa, Ochse played just one match in 1929–30 and then appeared in just two further seasons, 1931–32 and 1937–38, when he played quite regularly and took wickets at reasonable cost.


See also

*
Arthur Edward Ochse Arthur Edward Ochse (11 March 1870 – 11 April 1918), played Test cricket in the first matches played by South Africa in 1888–89. Life and career A middle-order batsman, Ochse, like the rest of the South African team, made his first-class ...


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ochse, Arthur 1899 births 1949 deaths People from Graaff-Reinet South Africa Test cricketers South African cricketers Eastern Province cricketers Cricketers from the Eastern Cape