Basil Melle

Basil George von Brandis Melle (31 March 1891 — 8 January 1966) was a South African cricketer and paediatrician. He played as a right-handed batsman and bowled right-arm medium pace and later leg breaks. Melle began his first-class career as a batsman, and it was not until he gained a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford to study medicine that Melle would achieve noterity as a bowler during the 1913 season. Employing fast leg theory bowling, he took 15 wickets at an average of 15.90 during his freshman year. David Frith, the cricket historian, saw Melle as playing a role in the origins of bodyline bowling. A finger injury and outbreak of the First World War disrupted his bowling, and when first-class cricket resumed in 1919, Melle was rarely utilised as a bowler. He graduated from Oxford and returned to South Africa, where he became a prominent paediatrician.

Early life and cricket Melle was born in Somerset West in March 1891. He was educated in Cape Town at the South African College School, where he excelled in physics and mathematics. At school, he was a member of the Students' Christian Association. He made his debut in first-class cricket for Western Province against Eastern Province at Newlands in the 1908–09 Currie Cup, with Melle making a further appearance in the competition against Transvaal. A hiatus of eighteen months followed before he next played first-class cricket, with Melle making nine further first-class appearances in 1909 and 1910, which included six appearances in the 1910–11 Currie Cup; He made his maiden century (145 runs) against Griqualand West during the season.

Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford Melle gained a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford in England in 1912, where he studied medicine at Brasenose College. Across the season, he took 55 wickets at a bowling average of 15.90, claiming five wickets in an innings on six occasions; that season he topped the Oxford bowling averages, with Murray et al. speculating that his seasonal return may have been even more impressive, had the close-in fieldsmen upon which his bowling relied been better versed at close-in catching, then also in its infancy. by playing in The University Match, Melle became the first South African-educated cricketer to earn a blue. During the season, he ended up taking 19 wickets for Oxford. Unbeknownst to Melle, this would be his final season playing for Oxford due to the outbreak of the First World War. In his two season's playing for Oxford, he made fifteen appearances in which he scored 497 runs at an average of 20.70, He was made a temporary lieutenant in April 1915, and a temporary captain in December 1915. He was appointed an adjutant in March 1917, but five months later he resigned his commission in order to resume his medical studies at Oxford, being granted the honorary rank of captain. Resuming his studies at Oxford, he achieved his MB in 1919 and proceeded to train at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College.

Return to South Africa After completing his training at St Bartholomew's, Melle returned to South Africa. There he was a physician at the newly established Transvaal Memorial Hospital for Children. He was later a founding member of the South African Paediatric Association in the 1940s, serving as its first chairman. During the 1930s, he was a lecturer in paediatics at the University of the Witwatersrand, with him later becoming a senior lecturer. During the latter part of his medical career, he did not retire completely from practice, but instead maintained a private practice. These appearances concluded his first-class career, with Melle having made 65 appearances. He scored 2,535 runs at an average 27.55, having made three centuries and thirteen half centuries. With the ball, he took 114 wickets at an average of 25.71, having taken nine five wicket hauls. The cricket historian David Frith considers Melle as having played a role in the origins of fast leg theory bowling,

Melle died in Johannesburg in January 1966; his son, Michael, played Test cricket for South Africa.