Discharged from the forces in 1945, Melville undertook an intensive programme of rehabilitation and was able to resume his cricket career early in 1946. Almost immediately, he was forced to stand down again and it was feared that his back injury had returned; in fact, he was not injured, but his wife had contracted poliomyelitis and while she recovered he looked after their children. He returned to cricket at the start of the 1946–47 season and in the first match scored a new personal highest score with an innings of 153, putting on 299 for the seventh wicket with Bruce Mitchell which was a partnership record for that wicket in South African cricket. With his wife recovered and his own fitness not in doubt, he was picked as captain for the 1947 South African tour of England.