1947 English cricket season
1947 was the 48th season of County Championship cricket in England. It is chiefly remembered for the batting performances of Denis Compton and Bill Edrich who established seasonal records that, with the subsequent reduction in the number of first-class matches, will probably never be broken. Their form was key to their team Middlesex winning the County Championship for the first time since 1921, although they were involved in a tight contest for the title with the eventual runners-up Gloucestershire, for whom Tom Goddard was the most outstanding bowler of the season. Compton and Edrich were assisted by the fact that it was the driest and sunniest English summer for a generation, ensuring plenty of good batting wickets.
The South Africans, captained by Alan Melville, toured the British Isles for the first time since 1935 and played a Test series of five matches against England, who won the series 3–0 with two matches drawn, again largely thanks to the batting of Compton and Edrich. The South Africans enjoyed greater success in first-class matches against the English county teams, losing only one and winning eleven. Other notable fixtures played include the University Match, Gentlemen v Players and North v South. The Minor Counties Championship was won by Yorkshire II, one of six first-class teams who entered their second elevens in the competition. Unusually, there were two tied matches in 1947, compared with two in the previous 21 years. Essex v Northamptonshire and Hampshire v Lancashire were the 20th and 21st tied matches in the history of first-class cricket worldwide since the earliest known instance in 1783.
The main source for information about the season is Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, in its 85th edition published in April 1948. This announced the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year for 1947: Martin Donnelly, Alan Melville, Dudley Nourse, Jack Robertson and Norman Yardley. 1947 was the first season to be reviewed by Playfair Cricket Annual, which began publication in April 1948.
Background
The main sources for the 1947 season are the 85th edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack and the inaugural edition of Playfair Cricket Annual, both published in April 1948. The 1947 season was therefore the first to be reviewed by Playfair.The winter of 1946–47 in the United Kingdom was harsh with heavy snowfalls disrupting communication and supply for about six weeks from January to March. February was one of the coldest months on record and the winter culminated in the wettest March for 300 years. Yet it was followed by what Playfair called a "glorious summer" in which fine weather prevailed and, as Wisden says, "the sun shone throughout". This was in sharp contrast to the wet summer of 1946. Despite austerity and rationing, the country was still in post-war euphoria and there was great enthusiasm for sporting events. As Wisden reports, "crowds thronged the grounds Lord's was often full for county games".
Wisden editor Hubert Preston commented in his 1948 editorial that "the season of 1947 bears favourable comparison with any year within living memory". He had expected the continuous fine weather to produce pitch conditions favourable to batsmen and hence the predominance of drawn matches but, as he wrote, "actually about three-quarters of the County Championship matches were won outright".
Playfair editor Peter West wrote that "a grand and glorious summer" had been "a feast amidst austerity indeed, a fine reward for months of waiting through a chill and infamous winter". West went on to claim that "nearly three million people", with the younger generation strongly represented, attended first-class cricket matches in 1947. It must be remembered that this means three million attendances and not literally three million people.
Honours
- Test Series – England 3–0 South Africa; two matches drawn
- County Championship – Middlesex
- Minor Counties Championship – Yorkshire II
- Wisden Cricketers of the Year – Martin Donnelly, Alan Melville, Dudley Nourse, Jack Robertson, Norman Yardley
South African tour
South Africa fared very well in their matches against the county clubs, winning eleven of the eighteen matches and losing only one, which was the opening match of the tour against Worcestershire by 39 runs. They lost to Marylebone Cricket Club in May by 158 runs, but in September they had a convincing nine wicket win against the South who included Denis Compton, Bill Edrich and Jack Robertson.
The outstanding South African players were the three best batsmen: Melville, Bruce Mitchell and Dudley Nourse. Ken Viljoen had a good tour and made six centuries but none in the Tests. The bowling was moderate as no one took more than 15 wickets in the series or averaged under forty. Athol Rowan with 102 was the only tourist to take a century of wickets in the season. The team badly lacked pace bowlers and included only two medium-fast seamers, Jack Plimsoll and Lindsay Tuckett, the majority of bowlers being spinners: Rowan, Tufty Mann, Ian Smith and Leslie Payn. South Africa had three wicketkeepers in the party: Johnny Lindsay, Douglas Ovenstone and George Fullerton. Ossie Dawson was an all-rounder and the remaining batsmen were Denis Begbie, Dennis Dyer and Tony Harris. South Africa used fourteen players in the Test series: the ones who missed out were Begbie, Ovenstone and Payn.
Test series summary
- Trent Bridge – match drawn.
- Lord's – England won by 10 wickets.
- Old Trafford – England won by 7 wickets.
- Headingley – England won by 10 wickets.
- The Oval – match drawn.
England team in 1947
The England team began 1947 on tour in Australia, where they were beaten 3–0 in the Test series, and then toured New Zealand where the sole Test arranged was ruined by rain. Having played South Africa at home in 1947, England's next tour was to the West Indies beginning in January 1948.England, playing under the auspices of MCC, took 17 players to Australia and New Zealand. Wally Hammond captained the team in his final Test series. The other batsmen were Len Hutton, Cyril Washbrook, Denis Compton, Bill Edrich, James Langridge, Laurie Fishlock and Joe Hardstaff junior. Jack Ikin and Norman Yardley were essentially all-rounders. Godfrey Evans and Paul Gibb were the wicketkeepers and the bowlers were Alec Bedser, Doug Wright, Dick Pollard, Peter Smith and Bill Voce. Gibb, Hardstaff, Hutton and Langridge did not play in New Zealand.
With Hammond having retired from international cricket, Yardley was appointed captain for the home series against South Africa. In the first Test, England recalled Eric Hollies and selected three debutants: Sam Cook, Tom Dollery and Jack Martin. Hutton, Washbrook, Edrich, Compton, Evans and Bedser were retained from the winter tour and these six with Yardley were the mainstays of the England team in 1947. There were changes again for the second Test with Charlie Barnett replacing Dollery, George Pope replacing Martin and Wright coming back in place of Cook. Bedser missed the third Test and was replaced by Cliff Gladwin while Ken Cranston was brought in to replace Pope. In the fourth Test, Jack Young was introduced in place of Hollies and Harold Butler for Gladwin. Edrich missed the last Test, as again did Bedser, and there were yet more changes elsewhere with Dick Howorth coming in to replace Barnett and Bill Copson replacing Butler. Jack Robertson took Edrich's place. It all meant that, in a five-match series they won 3–0, England used 21 different players.
With so many players under consideration, it was difficult to predict who would go to the West Indies in the winter and that question became even more complex when several players decided not to go. Bedser, Compton, Edrich, Hutton, Wright and Yardley from the 1947 series all declined the tour before the squad was selected, as did Trevor Bailey who was in contention for a place. With Yardley missing, MCC reappointed pre-war captain Gubby Allen to lead the party but he was the first in a spate of injuries when he damaged a leg muscle on the outward voyage. Following further injuries to Dennis Brookes and Joe Hardstaff junior, Allen asked MCC to send reinforcements and Hutton then changed his mind, flying out just in time to play against British Guiana.
Of the players who went to the West Indies, the only ones who had played against South Africa in the summer were Hutton, Evans, Cranston, Robertson, Howorth and Butler. Hardstaff and Ikin had been to Australia and New Zealand the previous winter. The other eight were Allen and seven newcomers: Dennis Brookes, Billy Griffith, Jim Laker, Winston Place, Gerald Smithson, Maurice Tremlett and Johnny Wardle. Playfair was disappointed with the situation in the West Indies, especially as England were well beaten in the Test series. The team, it said, "could not be called great by any standards" as it was too "experimental" but it at least seemed "workmanlike" and in Laker a new star had been discovered. Playfair ominously concluded its review by reference to the 1948 Australian team being "about to descend upon us well armed in all key departments we shall have to do better than this".