Kotze Johannes Image 1 Western Province 1907

Description

Hopefield, Western Cape born Johannes Kotze, known as “Kodgee”, was one of the fastest bowlers in the early history of the game. Like Tom Richardson, Kotze had the stamina to bowl fast at the end of a long day; but unlike the mighty Surrey man, he often became deeply despondent at dropped slip catches. One of his teammates once said that he would learn to be more charitable to his fieldsmen if he could only stand at slip himself to his own ferocious bowling.

A burly man, Kotze had a long run to the crease which climaxed in an intimidating leap. His grip of the ball was odd. He held it between middle- and fore-finger. And he seemed to retain it a micro-second longer than expected, which probably increased the thrust. His body swing helped impart violent swing to the ball, and on his day he must have been altogether a nightmare to face.

He toured England with the 1901, 1904 (104 first class wickets) and 1907 South African teams, having a good deal of success on the first two tours, when ‘Plum’ Warner thought him to be second only to Kortright for speed.His Test record is of little account: he made his debut against Australia at Johannesburg in October 1902 and played in the Cape Town Test the next month, across the two encounters he did at least capture the wickets of Trumper, Hill, Gregory and Duff. He played one further Test at Lord’s in July 1907 in South Africa’s first ever Test match in England.

In 72 first class matches for London County, Transvaal, Western Province and South Africa between 1901 and 1910, he took 348 wickets at an average of 17.86, with two hat-tricks and 8-18 his best figures for Transvaal against Griqualand West at Port Elizabeth in 1902-03. In the 1906-07 season he took as many as 54 wickets, including a career-best match return of 13-90 for Western Province against Orange Free State at Pretoria. In those matches he took ten wickets in a match 9 times and five wickets in an innings on 30 occasions. Although with the bat his average was a modest 8.60, he did score one half century, when he made 60.

He later became groundsman at Newlands.

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