Tufty Mann - Test Series in South Africa

Test Series in South Africa

Mann returned to South Africa for the 1947-48 domestic cricket season and in the first game took the best bowling figures of his career: eight for 59 against Western Province. For the two seasons that followed, however, domestic cricket took a back-seat to the tours of South Africa by, in 1948-49, an England team and then in 1949-50, a team from Australia. Mann played in all 10 Tests on these two tours and in only a single other first-class match in each season, and those other games were also against the touring sides.

In the series against England, Mann headed the South African bowling averages, though with 17 wickets he took fewer than Cuan McCarthy and Athol Rowan. Played mainly on batsman-friendly pitches and with the South Africans in particular often batting very defensively, the series was won by England by 2-0 with three drawn matches and there was a lot of bowling for South Africa's main three bowlers. It was in this series, when a particularly drawn-out innings by the England captain George Mann ended with his dismissal by Tufty Mann that broadcaster John Arlott summed up the innings as "a case of Mann's inhumanity to Mann". Mann's best bowling figures came in the tight first match which was affected by rain and which England won very narrowly by two wickets: he took six first-innings wickets for 59 runs, but in the second innings he and Rowan, who had taken the other four wickets in the first innings, were hampered by a wet ball and bowled very little. Conditions got easier for batsmen in the next match: Mann had a spell in which he took three middle-order English wickets while only 10 runs were added, but the score was 540 for three before the first of these wickets fell, and they were his only wickets of the match. For the third and fourth matches of the series, the selectors packed the South African side with bowlers in an attempt to take wickets; a consequence was that Mann bowled very little and failed to take a wicket in either match, though his fellow spin bowler, Rowan, was used more and was successful. In the fifth and final game, the fringe bowlers were left out so Rowan and Mann did most of the bowling and took 15 of the 17 England wickets to fall. In the second innings of this game England were set 172 to win in 95 minutes and achieved the target; Mann's 9.7 overs – eight-ball overs were used in this series – cost 65 runs and brought him four wickets, one of the few times in his career when he was hit in this way.

The Australian tour to South Africa in 1949-50 was an even less successful event for the South African side than the England tour had been: the Australians won four of the five Tests and had the better of the drawn game. South Africa's bowling was ostensibly hampered by injury to Rowan which kept him out of all the Tests, though Hugh Tayfield emerged as a spin partner for Mann and the real weakness, shown in the series figures, was in seam bowling – Tayfield took 17 wickets in the series, Mann, 16 and the other bowlers only 17 between them. Mann's best innings figures for the series came in the second match, where he took four for 105 as the Australians scored 526 for seven before declaring. The Australian first innings of the following Test, the third, was the only time in the series when the South African bowlers got on top of the Australian batsmen, and Tayfield took seven for 23 and Mann three for 31 as the touring team was dismissed for just 75 to give the South Africans a first-innings lead of 236: Mann and Tayfield were unable to repeat the feat in the second innings, however, and the Australians won the match by five wickets. The fourth Test of the series was the only drawn game; Mann took no wickets, but he scored 52, his only Test match half century.