Career
His appearances in first class cricket were limited by his movement between South Africa and his native Lancashire due to business commitments, but he played nine times as a professional for his native county in 1923 and 1924, despite controversy as to whether he was eligible given that he had played for South Africa. However, because Hall’s bowling was developed on the matting pitches then used in South Africa, he was not successful in England apart from his first two games when he took a total of sixteen wickets against the two University teams - though he did bowl with deadly effect in Lancashire League games for East Lancashire and Todmorden. Alf Hall was a left-arm fast medium bowler who could gain a lot of spin from matting pitches, as shown in the 1926-1927 where he set a record of fifty-two wickets in six matches including a haul of fourteen wickets for 115 runs against Natal and eleven for 98 against Border.
These business commitments (he worked in the textile industry) again removed Hall from first-class cricket after England’s next tour of South Africa in 1927-1928, when he bowled very well in one of the two Tests he could spare time for to take nine for 167.
Hall only reappeared briefly during the 1930-1931 tour, when with the gradual shift to turf pitches in South Africa he was not successful at all. Despite his skill as a bowler, Alf Hall stands as one of the very worst “rabbits” in the history of first-class cricket.
Among Test players, only Bhagwat Chandrasekhar has a higher ratio of wickets to runs in first-class cricket, and only Hopper Read a lower first-class batting average. Hall in fact reached double figures only three times in his fifty-seven first-class innings.