With Faulkner retiring in 1924, the South Africans, who had only two quality players in Taylor and Cattrell, underwent somewhat of a barren period in the 1920s. However, the emergence of a new generation of South African cricketers, more so in their batting than in their bowling, in the 1930s such as Bruce Mitchell, Xen Balaskas, Ken Viljoen, Dudley Nourse, Eric Rowan, Alan Melville, Pieter van der Bijl, and Ronnie Grieveson once again ensured that South Africa became a top-quality international team. The team's leading batsmen during this era were Mitchell, Nourse, Rowan, Melville, and van der Bijl. Nourse, in particular, became famous for his hand-eye coordination and his excellent fielding, one of many to be produced by South Africa in the coming decades; natural skills which were according to legend inspired and developed by his father Dave's refusal to coach him as a youngster, demanding that he learned the rudiments of the game on his own, as he himself had. This South African team was also distinct from past South African teams in one respect: whereas the previous teams had been composed entirely of British-origin players, this team had Afrikaners like van der Bijl and Greeks such as Balaskas, regarded by wide consensus to be the greatest Greek cricketer ever.