Robert James Crisp (28 May 1911 – 3 March 1994) was a South African cricketer who played in nine Test matches between 1935 and 1936. He appeared for Rhodesia, Western Province, Worcestershire and South Africa. Though his Test bowling average lay over 37.00, Crisp had a successful first-class cricket career, with 276 wickets at 19.88. He is the only bowler in first-class cricket to have taken four wickets in four balls more than once. He went on to a career in journalism and writing, publishing several accounts of his career in World War II and earning a reputation as an adventurer. Cricket career Domestic debut Crisp was born in Calcutta, Bengal in British India. He made sporadic appearances for Rhodesia between 1929 and 1931, taking only seven wickets before moving to Western Province for the 1931–32 season. He took 33 wickets that season at 14.93, including an eight-wicket haul against Griqualand West. He took three more five-wicket hauls in his 26 wicket-haul during the 1932–33 season, and scalped 27 more batsman in the 1933–34 season, including a career best 9/64 for Western Province. England tour Crisp toured England in 1935, taking 107 wickets in all at 19.58. He took 5/99 at Old Trafford for South Africa, to help earn his team their first victory in England. This was one of eight five-wicket hauls on the tour. Thirteen of those wickets came in his five Test matches, at 34.15. He returned to South Africa to take nine expensive wickets at 45.33 – seven of these in four Test matches against Australia before returning to England once more and taking a four-wicket haul in a first-class match that summer. He toured Ceylon and Malaya with Sir Julien Cahn's XI in the 1936–37 season, taking six wickets in the first-class match against Ceylon, before returning to England once more in 1938 to take 44 wickets for Worcestershire including a spell of 5/0. World War II and later life Crisp served during World War II in the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment, later writing two books documenting his experiences: The Gods Were Neutral and Brazen Chariots, the latter of which is considered one of the classic memoirs of tank warfare. These books covered his combat during the early part of the war. The Gods Were Neutral describes the British retreat in Greece in the spring of 1941. Brazen Chariots covers the period from the summer