Johannes Kotze
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Script error: No such module "Infobox".Template:Template otherScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Johannes Jacobus "Kodgee" Kotze (7 August 1879 – 7 July 1931) was a cricketer from Cape Colony who played in three Test matches for South Africa from 1902 to 1907.[1][2] He was considered one of the fastest bowlers of his time. He toured England with the South African teams in 1901, 1904 and 1907.[3]
Cricket career
At his death in 1931, Wisden ranked Kotze as one of the half-dozen fastest bowlers there had ever been.[4] He was able to maintain his speed for long spells, and could bowl as fast late in the day as at the start.[3] He was a poor batsman and clumsy fielder, though, which may have told against him when the South African Test teams were selected.[3] He was one of very few prominent Afrikaner cricketers of the period; he was the only Afrikaner in South Africa's 1901 tour of England, which took place during the Second Boer War.[5]
Kotze had played no first-class cricket and was virtually unknown when he was a surprise selection to tour England with the South African team in 1901.[6] In the event, he was one of the four principal bowlers on the tour, taking 49 first-class wickets at an average of 24.79, including 7 for 31 and 3 for 51 in the victory over Nottinghamshire.[7][8] No Test matches were played during the tour.[3]
When the Australian team made a short tour of South Africa in 1902–03, Kotze played in two of the three Tests, taking six wickets. His first two wickets were those of Victor Trumper and Clem Hill.[9] Later that season, playing for Transvaal against Griqualand West in the Currie Cup, he took 8 for 18 and 3 for 19; all but one of his victims were bowled.[10] In this match he took the first hat-trick in South African first-class cricket.[11] Transvaal won the Currie Cup that season, and Kotze was the leading bowler in the competition, with 34 wickets at an average of 7.29.[12]
In 1903–04, Kotze played for Western Province in the Currie Cup. He took 11 wickets in the final, but Transvaal won, taking the title again.[13] On the tour of England in 1904, Kotze was the leading wicket-taker, and one of the leading bowlers of the English season, with 121 wickets at an average of 19.85.[14] Again no Tests were played during the tour, but in two matches against MCC at Lord's, Kotze took 10 wickets at low cost, eight of them bowled.[15][16]
References
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- ↑ a b c d Christopher Martin-Jenkins, The Complete Who's Who of Test Cricketers, Rigby, Adelaide, 1983, p. 292.
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- ↑ Albert Grundlingh, "From JJ 'Boerjong' Kotze to Hansie Cronje: Afrikaners and Cricket in Twentieth Century South Africa", The International Journal of the History of Sport, Volume 28, 2011, pp. 98–114.
- ↑ "Pavilion Gossip", Cricket, 18 April 1901, p. 74.
- ↑ "The South African Team", Cricket, 22 August 1901, p. 368.
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- ↑ Rowland Bowen, Cricket: A History of Its Growth and Development Throughout the World, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1970, p. 313.
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