23 Facts About Tufty Mann

Norman Bertram Fleetwood "Tufty" Mann was a South African cricketer who played in 19 Test matches from 1947 to 1951.

Tall, thin and bespectacled, Tufty Mann was a lower-order right-handed batsman and a slow left-arm orthodox spin bowler.

Tufty Mann played first-class cricket for Natal in the seasons immediately before and after the Second World War and then played for Eastern Province from 1946 to 1947.

Tufty Mann came to the fore in golf first and at the age of 16 he won the Natal Amateur Golf Championship.

Tufty Mann won a blue for golf in the annual match between Cambridge University and Oxford University.

Tufty Mann did not play cricket for the University's first team; he played in the Freshman's trial match, but did not take any wickets and was not tried again.

Tufty Mann served in the Second World War and was captured in the fighting in Italy; he escaped from a prisoner of war camp and was "hidden by peasants", according to his obituary in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack.

Tufty Mann kept a large diary of his exploits in wartime and on his cricket visit to England in 1951 was attempting to sell his memoirs.

Tufty Mann followed that with six for 126 against another Test-batsman-filled team, Natal, in the next match.

Tufty Mann's accuracy was one of the few factors that could subdue the English pair, and his first bowling in Test cricket, in the first game of the five-match series, was a spell of eight successive maidens; he finished the innings with figures of no wickets for 10 runs in 20 overs.

Tufty Mann followed that up when England followed on with second-innings figures of one for 94 in 60 overs: the single wicket that he took was that of Compton, but Compton had made 163 by that stage and the match was easily saved.

Tufty Mann conceded less than two runs an over when Edrich and Compton shared a third-wicket partnership of 370 in the second Test, and ended the stand by bowling Edrich, his only wicket in the match.

Tufty Mann had particular success in a late-season match against Kent when he followed first-innings bowling of six for 132 with a second-innings return of seven for 95.

Tufty Mann's batting was occasionally successful too: against Glamorgan he hit 97 in 55 minutes, including a six and 13 fours, and was out to "a deep-field catch" going for his century.

Tufty 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 against the touring sides.

Conditions got easier for batsmen in the next match: Tufty 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.

The fourth Test of the series was the only drawn game; Tufty Mann took no wickets, but he scored 52, his only Test match half century.

Tufty Mann was picked for his second tour of England with the 1951 team.

Athol Rowan and Tufty Mann bowled England out for 114 and Tufty Mann's four for 24 came in 24 overs, of which 16 were maidens.

The fifth and final Test at The Oval was played on a pitch that suited spin bowlers, but Tufty Mann was not fit to play: his absence, Wisden wrote, "was keenly felt, for the pitch should have proved ideal for his left-arm slow bowling".

Tufty Mann returned to the team for one final county match against Middlesex at Lord's, but the game was washed out and he did not take a wicket in just six overs of bowling.

Tufty Mann had "an abdominal operation" in England, where he stayed in the hospital for three months, having been joined in England by his wife, Daphne.

Tufty Mann was able to return to South Africa, but needed a second operation in mid-1952 and died six weeks later, on 31 July 1952 in Hillbrow.