Anton Murray

Anton Murray

Personal information
Full name	Anton Ronald Andrew Murray
Born	(1922-04-30)30 April 1922 Grahamstown, Cape Province, South Africa
Died	17 April 1995(1995-04-17) (aged 72) Cape Town, South Africa
Height	6 ft 2 in (188 cm)
Batting style	Right-handed batsman
Bowling style	Right-arm slow-medium
Role	All-rounder
International information
National side	South Africa
Test debut (cap 186)	5 December 1952 v Australia
Last Test	9 February 1954 v New Zealand
Domestic team information
Years	Team
1947/48–1955/56	Eastern Province
Career statistics
Competition Tests First-class Matches 10 64 Runs scored 289 2685 Batting average 22.23 29.83 100s/50s 1/1 4/15 Top score 109 133 Balls bowled 2374 14807 Wickets 18 188 Bowling average 39.44 24.90 5 wickets in innings – 8 10 wickets in match – 2 Best bowling 4/169 7/30 Catches/stumpings 3/– 32/–
Source: CricketArchive, 17 April 2009

Anton Ronald Andrew Murray (30 April 1922 in Grahamstown, Cape Province – 17 April 1995 in Cape Town, Cape Province) was a South African cricketer who played in 10 Tests in a little over a year from December 1952 to February 1954, appearing four times against Australia and then six times against New Zealand. He later toured England as a member of the 1955 South African side but did not appear in any of the Tests there. Outside cricket, he was a schoolmaster who founded a noted school in Pretoria.

Anton Murray was a tall and athletic cricketer: a useful middle or lower order right-handed batsman and a right-arm slow-to-medium-pace bowler who used a lot of variations of pace. He played South African domestic first-class cricket from the 1947–48 season, and had a sensational first season for Eastern Province, scoring 133, which proved to be his highest first-class score, in only his second match, the game against Western Province at Cape Town. Later in the same season, he took seven wickets for 30 runs, his best single-innings haul, in the match against Orange Free State at Bloemfontein.

The suspension of the Currie Cup competition over the next two seasons while first England and then Australia toured South Africa limited Murray's first-class cricket to just two matches in the first season. In 1950–51, when the domestic competition resumed, Murray had an unspectacular batting season and, except in one innings, a modest bowling season too: the exception was the match against Transvaal, when he took seven for 109, the second seven-wicket haul of his career. These were seven of only eight Transvaal wickets that fell to bowlers in the match, which Eastern Province lost by 10 wickets.