Hugh Tayfield was South Africa’s key performer during their impressive run in Test cricket the early 1950s. He was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1956.
Hugh Tayfield took 170 wickets at 25.91 from 37 Tests and was South Africa’s leading wicket-taker at the time of his retirement in 1960. In 187 first-class games, he collected 864 wickets at 21.86.
In the renaissance of South African cricket since 1951, no role had been more vital, nor more successfully accomplished, than that of Hugh Joseph Tayfield. To the dark, slimly-built Natal off-break bowler fell the task of shouldering, almost single-handed, the burden formerly shared by those two great spin bowlers, AMB Rowan and the late NBF Mann.
Figures tell eloquently of the splendid manner in which Tayfield responded to that call and the great part he has played in one of the most glorious chapters in South Africa’s cricket history. In the 17 Tests played by South Africa from 1952 to the end of the 1955 tour of England, JE Cheetham’s spin bowlers accounted for 109 batsmen. Of these, no fewer than 87 fell to the guileful, tenacious Tayfield, an average of four out of every five. His place in the annals of the game became assured when, by dismissing TW Graveney in the fifth Test at Kennington Oval last summer, Tayfield claimed his hundredth Test victim. This honour eluded even such famous Springboks as CL Vincent (84) and GA Faulkner (82), both of whom appeared in twenty-five Tests compared with Tayfield’s twenty-two.
Cricket was in Tayfield’s blood when he was born in Durban on January 30, 1929. His uncle, SH Martin, played for Worcestershire with considerable success as an all-rounder in the 1930’s and later helped to develop his nephew’s cricket as a fellow-member of the Natal and Rhodesia sides.
Tayfield’s father was also a keen cricketer in his youth and remains among the most demanding critics of Hugh and his younger brother, Arthur and Cyril, both of whom now play for their adopted province of Transvaal.
As a boy, Hugh bowled out of back of his hand and though his batting and fielding were sufficient to keep him in the Durban High School XI his opportunities with the ball were limited. The turning-point in Tayfield’s career occurred when the school captain, also a leg-break bowler, suggested that Tayfield should try his hand at off-breaks. At his first attempt Hugh took two or three good wickets and promptly resolved to concentrate on his new-found art.
Tayfield cannot recall being coached or modelling his technique on that of any other bowler, but he progressed so rapidly that soon after his seventeenth birthday he made his first-class debut for Natal. The following season, 1946/47, he helped Natal to win the revived Currie Cup competition and attracted special attention by taking six for 27 and six for 46 in friendly matches against Rhodesia and Transvaal respectively.
For the next two years Tayfield was lost to Natal through Army service in Rhodesia, where he joined Martin and another former Worcestershire player, AP Singleton, in the provincial side. With them he gained his first taste of international cricket against FG Mann’s 1948/49 MCC team and, though he took only two wickets in the two games, bowled well enough to persuade several English players that they had met a worthy successor to Rowan, then acknowledged as the world’s best off-spin bowler.
Tayfield insists on giving much of the credit for his achievements to the splendid support he has received in the field, both for South Africa and Natal. While undoubtedly true, this is no more that his deserts for he is himself a brilliant fielder, either to his own bowling or in any of the close positions. As a batsman Tayfield was not seen at his best in 1955, but he has many fine innings to his credit, notably one of 75 against Australia when runs were badly needed.
Apart from these talents, Tayfield has contrived to remain a personality in a side which has submerged individuality to a remarkable degree in the common cause. None has submitted more cheerfully nor more loyally to the discipline imposed by JE Cheetham and KG Viljoen, but he belongs to the breed of cricketers who compel the interest of spectators. His habit of kissing his cap for luck at the start of each over has been criticised as ostentation, but it is characteristic of Tayfield that he should remain quite unmoved in his determination to continue the ritual. It began during the triumphant Melbourne Test of 1952/53. Australia were 84 for no wicket when Tayfield kissed his cap in desperation. Immediately AR Morris gave a return catch and the habit was born.
Tayfield has no explanation, however, for the other mannerism that led the Australians to christen him Toey at the outset of his Test career. Whether preparing to wheel into his brief, lopsided run or waiting for the next ball to be bowled to him while batting, he taps the toe of each boot firmly on the ground two or three times. Yet such is his intense concentration that he is hardly aware of doing so.
