Alan Melville
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Alan Melville | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
19 May 1910 Carnarvon, Cape Province, South Africa |
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| Died | 18 April 1983 (aged 72) Sabie, Transvaal, South Africa |
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| Batting style | Right-handed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling style | Right-arm leg-break, later off-break | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Role | Initially all-rounder, later batsman only | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Relations | Colin (brother) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| International information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| National side | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Test debut (cap 152) | 24 December 1938 v England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last Test | 5 January 1949 v England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Domestic team information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1928/29–1929/30 | Natal | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1930–1933 | Oxford University | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1932–1936 | Sussex | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1936/37–1948/49 | Transvaal | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Source: CricketArchive, 25 May 2013 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Alan Melville (19 May 1910 – 18 April 1983) was a South African cricketer who played in 11 Tests from 1938 to 1949. He was born in Carnarvon, Northern Cape, South Africa and died at Sabie, Transvaal.
Melville was a right-handed middle-order batsman sometimes used as an opener and a right-arm leg-break and googly bowler who later switched to off-breaks. Educated at Michaelhouse, he was still a schoolboy when he appeared first for Natal in 1928–29. In his first first-class game, he took five Transvaal wickets for 71 runs in the second innings. His second match was a trial for the 1929 South African tour to England and he scored 123, putting on 283 for the second Natal wicket with Jack Siedle; he also took four more wickets in the game. After this performance, his father was approached to discuss a place in the touring team for him, but it was decided that he would continue with his studies with the aim of going to Oxford University later in 1929.
Before he went to Oxford, Melville was involved in a car accident in which he fractured three vertebrae; he appeared to have made a full recovery and was able to take his place at Oxford in the autumn of 1929.
Melville made an unbeaten century in the Freshman's trial match at Oxford and was thereafter a regular in the Oxford University side over the next four years, winning a Blue each year.
He scored 78 in his first first-class innings for Oxford against Kent in May 1930. In the next game, he scored 118 against Yorkshire. He did not maintain that form, but finished with 591 runs at an average of 32.83, plus 19 rather expensive wickets, though he was not successful with either bat or ball in the University Match against Cambridge University. Melville's record improved slightly in 1931, with 631 runs and an average of 35.05, though there were no centuries. Injury to the University team's designated captain, Denis Moore, meant that Melville led the side in the University Match where, with an unbeaten 238 from the Nawab of Pataudi which overshadowed 201 for Cambridge by Alan Ratcliffe, Oxford achieved the first victory over Cambridge since 1923. In 1932, Melville was the Oxford captain in his own right, but his season was disrupted by injury – though not to the same degree as Moore's had been in 1931 – when he broke his collarbone while batting in the match against the Free Foresters by colliding with his partner, Pieter van der Bijl. Melville had made an unbeaten century, 113* before the collision. On his return to the side in late June, he was successful with the ball, taking a hat-trick and nine wickets in the game against H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI, and he finished top of the University bowling averages. In the University Match, Melville was unable to repeat his leadership success of 1931, and the match was drawn.
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