About this ebook
No stranger to controversy, he sat down on the pitch when a Lancashire crowd barracked him for slow scoring, was controversially omitted from South Africa’s 1947 tour of England and had his Test career ended by the South African Cricket Association for reasons other than cricket.
Using a variety of sources and photographs from the Brian Bassano collection, Rick Smith describes the career of this South African whose approach to cricket would have been very much at home in the modern era.
In his Test career lasting from 1935 to 1951 Eric Rowan scored 1,965 runs at an average of 43.66. In 1951, aged 42, he made 236 against England at Leeds which was then South Africa’s highest individual score in a Test match. He is still the oldest cricketer to score a Test match double century. Durable to the end, Eric’s career ended in the 1953/1954 season when he was not far short of his 45th birthday.
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About the author
Rick Smith was born in Launceston, Tasmania in 1955. He is a former A Grade cricketer with a deep interest in the game. He is the author or co-author of a number of books on various aspects of cricket history, including Australian Test Cricketers, Great Days in Test Cricket, Cricket’s Enigma: the Sid Barnes Story and Blighted Lives: the Story of Harry and Albert Trott. The latter title was named the Australian Cricket Society’s Book of the Year in 2011. For over twenty years he has been Cricket Tasmania’s official match photographer, recording some of Tasmania’s finest cricketing moments. Rick is a retired teacher and lives in Launceston with his wife Leanne and son David.
