Denis Lindsay - Early Career

Early Career

Denis Lindsay made his first-class debut at the age of 19 for North-Eastern Transvaal in the "B" Section of the Currie Cup in the 1958-59 season. Playing against Orange Free State at Benoni he batted at number five and kept wickets, hitting his team's highest score, 43, in a narrow defeat in a low-scoring match. He immediately became a fixture in his provincial side. He hit his first century, 116, against Orange Free State the next season.

In 1961 he was selected with 12 other promising young players to tour England as the South African Fezela XI under the captaincy of Roy McLean. In the first of the three first-class matches, against Essex, he hit five sixes in successive balls from the leg-spinner Bill Greensmith to win the match.

After solid performances with the bat and behind the stumps for North-Eastern Transvaal, Lindsay was selected to tour Australia and New Zealand in 1963-64. Against South Australia in one of the early matches he scored 104 batting at number nine, adding 108 in 75 minutes with Kelly Seymour, and taking the score from 192 for 7 to 375, when he was last out.

He played his first Test four weeks later, batting as a specialist batsman at number five (John Waite kept wicket) and making 17 in his only innings. He missed the next two Tests, but returned for the Fourth Test in Adelaide, keeping wicket for the first time. In South Africa's only Test victory on the tour, he scored 41 in his only innings, took four catches, and conceded only one bye. Wally Grout described Lindsay's catch to dismiss Barry Shepherd as "one of the best catches I have ever seen by a wicket-keeper"; Lindsay "turned and sprinted at least 20 yards towards the boundary before diving to catch a ball that went high enough to bring rain".

Waite returned to keep wickets in the Fifth Test, but Lindsay stayed in the side, scoring 65 and putting on 118 for the sixth wicket with Colin Bland. He played as a batsman in all three Tests against New Zealand, but made only 86 runs at an average of 17.20.

At the start of the 1964-65 season he was selected for a South African team against The Rest in a trial match for the forthcoming Test series against the visiting English team. Batting at number six he hit 107 not out, and put on an unbroken partnership of 267 for the fifth wicket with Bland. He was selected to keep wicket for the first three Tests. He top-scored in the first innings of the First Test with 38, and kept through an English innings of 531 in the Second Test without conceding a bye, but he had not made the quick runs South Africa needed, and after the Third Test he was dropped in favour of Waite.

He toured England in 1965 and played in all three Tests. He made the team's first century of the tour, 105 in three hours against Yorkshire batting at number three. He stayed at three for the First Test, making 40 and 22, taking three catches and conceding one bye. He took four catches and a stumping and conceded one bye again when South Africa won the Second Test, though he scored only 0 and 9. Asked to open the batting in the Third Test in an attempt to find a partner for Eddie Barlow, he made only 4 and 17 and made only one stumping, but conceded no byes. Commenting on the series overall, Wisden said he "shone behind the stumps".

He made 425 runs at 47.22 in 1965-66 with three 50s, helping North-Eastern Transvaal to victory in the "B" Section of the Currie Cup, and kept wicket for North in the North v South trial match at the end of the season.