second innings, having opened the batting in the first innings, and made an unbeaten 47 that forced England to bat again after South Africa had followed on 264 runs behind on the first innings. South African domestic cricket in 1924–25 was dominated by the tour of a team of English cricketers sponsored by the tycoon S. B. Joel; the team included players with Test experience, but though four matches were arranged against a Test-standard South African side, they were granted only first-class status. Deane played in all four but made little impression; he did better in the Transvaal match against Joel's side, when he scored a second-innings 118. From 1925–26, he was captain of the Transvaal team; in his first season, the team won the Currie Cup by winning five matches out of six, and the following year Transvaal won every match they played. Test captain With this domestic record of captaincy success, Deane was picked as captain for the South Africa side for the 1927–28 English tour of South Africa, ahead of Herbie Taylor who had led the 1924 tour of England, but whose form had reportedly suffered in the big matches from the pressures of the captaincy. Poor batting led to defeat in the first match of the series and in the second the South Africans had a first-innings lead of 117, with Deane contributing 41 to a total of 250, but still lost the match by 87 runs. The turnaround in the series started with third Test, which was drawn with the South Africans finally posting a respectable total. Deane was instrumental in this: in the first innings, with the score at 146 for seven, he and Buster Nupen both made scores of more than 50, with Deane going on to 77. In the second innings, an all-round better batting performance by the South Africans secured the draw with Deane making a further 73. A new fast-medium bowling combination allied to less brittle batting brought a South African victory in the fourth Test, with Deane batting when victory by four wickets was achieved. And the series was tied at two wins apiece with a South African victory in the final match by eight wickets. As captain, Deane won the toss five times out of five in the series; unusually for the time in which he played, he put the England team in to bat three times, claiming