Batting style Right-hand bat Role Cricket Player Name Merv Wallace | National side New Zealand Bowling style Right-arm offbreak Died March 21, 2008 | |
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Walter Mervyn "Merv" Wallace (19 December 1916 – 21 March 2008) was a New Zealand cricketer and former Test match captain.
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Former New Zealand captain John Reid called him "the most under-rated cricketer to have worn the silver fern." He was nicknamed "Flip" by his teammates, because that was the strongest expletive they ever heard him say.
Cricket career
Wallace was born in Grey Lynn, Auckland. He left school aged 13, and was coached at Eden Park by Ted Bowley and Jim Parks. He played cricket with his brother, George Wallace, with the Point Chevalier Cricket Club, and then the Auckland under-20 side.
He made his first-class debut for Auckland in the Plunket Shield in December 1933. He toured to England in 1937, in a team weakened by a policy of refusing to select professional cricketers. He scored two half-centuries (52 and 56) on his Test debut, at Lord's. He headed the tour batting averages, scoring 1,641 runs at an average of 41.02. The peak years of his cricketing career were lost to the Second World War, and he did not play Test cricket again until March 1946.
He scored 211, his highest first-class score, against Canterbury in January 1940.[1] He joined the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, but was invalided out due to stomach muscle problems caused by an appendix operation.
He played in New Zealand's first Test against Australia, in Wellington in March 1946, which Australia won by an innings within two days. He also played against the English tourists in 1947. He joined the four-Test tour to England in 1949 as vice-captain to Walter Hadlee. He scored 1,722 first-class runs at an average of 49.20, including centuries against Yorkshire, Worcester, Leicester, Cambridge University and Glamorgan. He scored 910 runs before the end of May, narrowly failing to join Donald Bradman (twice) and Glenn Turner as the only touring batsmen to pass 1,000 runs before the end of May. He was less successful in the Tests.
He made his Test best score of 66 against England at Christchurch in 1951, and played his last two Tests as captain against the touring South Africans in 1953. Short but quick, he was able to score all round the wicket, with a particularly notable cover drive. His Test batting average of 20.90 was widely considered to fail to reflect his batting abilities.
After cricket
Wallace was the coach of New Zealand's first victorious Test team, against the West Indies at Eden Park in 1956. Afterwards, however, his coaching prowess was overlooked by the New Zealand administrators. He ran a sports shop with tennis player Bill Webb from 1947 to 1982.
In the 2004 Queen's Birthday Honours, Wallace was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to cricket.
Death
He suffered from diabetes in later life, becoming blind and losing several toes. He died in Auckland on Good Friday in 2008. As a mark of respect, the New Zealand team playing England in the 3rd Test at McLean Park in Napier wore black armbands on Saturday 22 March.
Family
His brother, George Wallace, and son, Gregory Wallace, both played first-class cricket for Auckland, and his daughter, Adele, married rugby union player Grant Fox. One of Wallace's grandchildren is the golfer Ryan Fox.
A biography, Merv Wallace: A Cricket Master by Joseph Romanos, was published in 2000.