Frank "The Dusty Don" Roro
He is the one I had in mind when I asked mr_Mister to allow Howa Bowl players. I took a big gamble by not taking him before and waiting for so long, as I honestly could had taken him as soon as Round 3. In the turn of the millenium, when CSA made a 10 person shortlist for the greatest South African cricketers of all time, Roro was one of the 2 black players there. Roro had been termed the "Grace of African cricket" and "The Dusty Don Bradman", and while looking at his record; those epithets doesn't sound too flattering. His contemporaries strongly believed he could had walked into any national team that ever existed.
An extract from an article by Rodney Ulyate and Richard Parry:
"Roro was the first South African, of any extraction, to register 100 centuries. He did this at an average north of 100. In provincial cricket between 1934 and 1951, he accumulated no fewer than twenty centuries (top score 228), which accounts for most of his 3,000-run aggregate. (His average at this level, in other words, was also probably around 100, but in the absence of complete records, a function of wilful neglect by mainstream news and white historians, it is impossible to be certain.) Of the nine inter-provincial championships in which he participated, Transvaal took all but three.
All this he accomplished on “rush matting,” or what passed for turf in the under-resourced African game. At 5 ft 8 in., he was almost as low-set as Bradman, but what he wanted in reach he covered (like Bradman) with keen eyes and volant feet. Fast bowling held no terrors for him; even on bumpy wickets he would dance out to meet the seamers, but it was his majesty off the back foot — his dauntless hooks, his carpal pulls — that endured longest in the memories of those who saw them. His concentration was inerrant, his appetite quenchless. No matter the conditions, he was “fluent and graceful at all times.”
Times like 1934, in Port Elizabeth, on a pitch “made up of pure fresh anthill with a liberal sprinkling of stones,” and when “the goddess of luck alone apparently prevented any serious injuries.” Here Roro stretched up towards the outer limits of his talent, scoring 134 and 95 to bring Transvaal its first national title. He had a stroke for every ball, and the gift of placement; and for all his classicism, he made his runs quickly. A born entertainer, he could not resist smashing a quick full-length ball straight back over the sightscreen to win a match. His batting was a major stimulant to black interest in the game.
At times he seemed a host in himself — a one-man team. In this he was less Bradman than Bradman’s black contemporary George Headley, christened “Atlas” for carrying the West Indies on his shoulders. Roro often accounted for more than two thirds of Transvaal’s innings. The most striking instance is his 95 out of 127 against Border in the 1934 final, or perhaps his unbeaten 102 out of 137 against Western Province in 1950, when he was well into his fifth decade. His 93 against Border in Durban in 1939 abstracted victory from a nailed-on defeat, and was arrested only by an unplayable leg-break."
To top of his ungodly batting prowess, he was also a leg spinner capable of playing on his bowling alone and a fielder many considered to be in champion class.