1. Jack's older brother Karl Siedle played first-class cricket for Natal before the First World War, in which he was killed; his sister Perla Siedle Gibson became a well-known singer and a symbol of her country during the Second World War.
19 Facts About Jack Siedle
1. 2.
Jack Siedle married Lesley Maud McPherson on 14 March 1931, with his cricket colleague Eric Dalton as best man.
3.
Jack Siedle was in less good form the following year, though he managed a second century against Orange Free State.
4.
Jack Siedle was then called up for the third Test at Durban against the touring England team, opening the innings and scoring 11 and 10.
5.
Jack Siedle did well in the early first-class matches of the tour to England: in the second county match of the tour, he hit an unbeaten 169 against Leicestershire, taking more than five hours to reach 100 but then adding a further 69 in little more than an hour.
6.
Jack Siedle returned to fitness in time to be selected for the third Test, but he was not a success, being dismissed for 0 and 14 as England won the match by five wickets.
7.
Jack Siedle ended the tour with 1579 runs, the second highest aggregate after Bruce Mitchell, at an average of 35.88, the second highest average after Herbie Taylor.
8.
Jack Siedle made 46 and 38 in Natal's match against the touring side, and that was enough to earn him a place in the team for the first of a five-Test series.
9.
The fourth Test was a tight match that ended in a draw and Jack Siedle scored 62 in the first innings and 8 in the second.
10.
Jack Siedle was initially selected to be vice-captain to Jock Cameron on the tour.
11.
Jack Siedle has appeared fairly regularly for Natal in Currie Cup and other first-class games over the next seasons, but having missed the Australasian tour, there were no other opportunities for Test cricket until 1935, when he was selected against for the tour to England.
12.
Jack Siedle was very much the form player in the first weeks of the South African tour of England in 1935.
13.
Nourse was prominent with a first-innings century in the Oxford match as well, but in the second South African innings Jack Siedle shared an opening stand of 164 with Herby Wade and then an unbroken partnership of 205 with Eric Rowan as a high-scoring match petered out to a draw: Jack Siedle's 164 not out was his highest score of the tour.
14.
The match against MCC at Lord's was ruined as a contest by rain on the second and third days, but on the first day Jack Siedle had carried his bat for 132 in the South Africans' innings of 297.
15.
Wisden reported that "chief honours" in the match went to Jack Siedle and that his innings was "a great feat in view of the previous poor scoring at headquarters".
16.
The South African cricket season immediately following the England tour included a series of five Tests against the Australians, and although the series was won rather easily by Australia and there were many changes in the South African team, Jack Siedle maintained his place in the Test side throughout the season.
17.
The batting overall was better in the fifth and final match of the series, though the result was still an innings defeat: Jack Siedle scored 36 and 46 in this match; in contrast to his style earlier in the series, and in the second innings of this match, Jack Siedle's first innings took more than two-and-a-half hours and his 36 was scored out of a total of 124.
18.
Jack Siedle played only one further season of first-class cricket for Transvaal after this and had retired by the time of the next Test series played by the South African team.
19.
Jack Siedle died on 24 August 1982 in Bulwer, Natal.