page_title: Merv Wallace
section_title: Cricket playing career
hierarchical_section_title: Merv Wallace / Cricket playing career
caption_attribution_description: British film actress Rona Anderson demonstrates her cricket skills to players of the 1949 New Zealand cricket team touring England during a visit to Pinewood Studios. Left to right: Martin Donnelly (kneeling), Geoff Rabone, Walter Hadlee (kneeling), Frank Mooney, Rona Anderson, Harry Cave, Merv Wallace, John R. Reid.
context_page_description: Walter Mervyn Wallace MNZM, known as Merv Wallace, was a New Zealand cricketer and former Test match captain.
  Former New Zealand captain John Reid called him "the most under-rated cricketer to have worn the silver fern." He was nicknamed "Flip" by his teammates, because that was the strongest expletive they ever heard him say.
context_section_description: Wallace was born in Grey Lynn, Auckland.  He left school aged 13, and was coached at Eden Park by Ted Bowley and Jim Parks.  He played cricket with his brother, George Wallace, with the Point Chevalier Cricket Club, and then the Auckland under-20 side.
  He made his first-class debut for Auckland in the Plunket Shield in December 1933. He toured to England in 1937, in a team weakened by a policy of refusing to select professional cricketers.  He scored two half-centuries (52 and 56) on his Test debut, at Lord's. He headed the tour batting averages, scoring 1,641 runs at an average of 41.02. The peak years of his cricketing career were lost to the Second World War, and he did not play Test cricket again until March 1946.
  He scored 211, his highest first-class score, against Canterbury in January 1940, making his runs in 292 minutes. He joined the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, but was invalided out due to stomach muscle problems caused by an appendix operation.
  He played in New Zealand's first Test against Australia, in Wellington in March 1946, which Australia won by an innings within two days. He also played against the English tourists in 1947. He joined the four-Test tour to England in 1949 as vice-captain to Walter Hadlee. He scored 1,722 first-class runs at an average of 49.20, including centuries against Yorkshire, Worcester, Leicester, Cambridge University and Glamorgan. He scored 910 runs before the end of May, narrowly failing to join Donald Bradman (twice) and Glenn Turner as the only touring batsmen to pass 1,000 runs before the end of May. He was less successful in the Tests.
  He made his Test best score of 66 against England at Christchurch in 1951, and played his last two Tests as captain against the touring South Africans in 1953.  Short but quick, he was able to score all round the wicket, with a particularly notable cover drive.  His Test batting average of 20.90 was widely considered to fail to reflect his batting abilities.
caption: British film actress Rona Anderson demonstrates her cricket skills to players of the 1949 New Zealand cricket team touring England during a visit to Pinewood Studios. Left to right: Martin Donnelly (kneeling), Geoff Rabone, Walter Hadlee (kneeling), Frank Mooney, Rona Anderson, Harry Cave, Merv Wallace, John Reid
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