Norman Bertram Fleetwood "Tufty" Mann (28 December 1920 – 31 July 1952) was a South African cricketer who played in 19 Test matches from 1947 to 1951. Tall, thin and bespectacled, Tufty Mann was a lower-order right-handed batsman and a slow left-arm orthodox spin bowler. He played first-class cricket for Natal in the seasons immediately before and after the Second World War, and then played for Eastern Province from 1946 to 1947. But more than two-thirds of his 73 first-class games were for South Africa, on tours to England in 1947 and 1951 and in home series against England and Australia. Background and early cricket career Born in Benoni, Transvaal, Mann was educated at the Michaelhouse boarding school in South Africa and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University. He came to the fore in golf first and at the age of 16 he won the Natal Amateur Golf Championship. He won a blue for golf in the annual match between Cambridge University and Oxford University. He did not play cricket for the University's first team; he played in the Freshman's trial match, but did not take any wickets and was not tried again. Back in South Africa the following winter, however, Mann made his first-class cricket debut for Natal in five games in the 1939–40 season and bowled economically in them, though he did not take more than three wickets in any one innings. Mann served in the Second World War and was captured in the fighting in Italy; he escaped from a prisoner of war camp and was "hidden by peasants", according to his obituary in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. He kept a large diary of his exploits in wartime and on his cricket visit to England in 1951 was attempting to sell his memoirs. In his will published after his death in 1952 he left £400 to two Italian farmers who had sheltered him in the North Italian marshes after he had escaped. After war service, Mann returned to Natal but, as in 1939–40, in his three matches for the team in 1945–46 he failed to take more than three wickets in an innings. A move to Eastern Province in 1946–47 brought immediate dividends. In his first match for his new team, he took six wickets in Transvaal's first innings at a cost of 69 runs; more remarkable by modern standards was the economy, for the wickets, five