South African cricket team in England in 1951 South African cricket team in England in 1951 The South African cricket team toured England in the 1951 season to play a five-match Test series against England. England won the series 3-1 with 1 match drawn. The South African team was captained by Dudley Nourse, with Eric Rowan as vice-captain. The manager was Sid Pegler who had toured England as a player with the South African cricket team of 1912 and 1924. The full team was: Tayfield was not originally chosen, but joined the party in May when it was feared that Athol Rowan's health might not be up to
Tony Greig consciously set out to build a rapport with the Indian crowd, for instance, playing 'dead' when loud firecrackers went off in the ground. England went on to score one of their most convincing wins in a very long time when they won the first three Tests by huge margins. Greig rated the win at Calcutta, when he scored 103 on a broken pitch, and struggling with a stomach bug, in front of 100,000 Indian fans, as the finest moment of his career. With 342 runs (at 42) and ten wickets, Greig had regained form to take with him to Australia.