Michael George Melle (3 June 1930 – 28 December 2003) was a South African cricketer who played in seven Test matches from 1950 to 1953. Melle was educated at Hilton College. A "genuinely fast right-arm bowler", Melle made his first-class debut for Transvaal at the age of 18 against the touring MCC in Johannesburg in 1948–49, opening the bowling and taking one wicket. For his next match he was selected to play for a South African XI against the touring Australians in 1949–50 and took 4 for 82. After two matches for Transvaal against the Australians he was selected to open the bowling with Cuan McCarthy in the Fourth Test in Johannesburg, having taken just six first-class wickets at 38.33. Still only 19 years old, he took 5 for 113 and 1 for 58 in a drawn match, then 2 for 132 in the Fifth Test in Port Elizabeth, which Australia won by an innings. He played his first Currie Cup matches the following season, 1950–51. In the first, for Transvaal against Rhodesia in Salisbury, batting at number eight he scored 50, his highest score to date, and took 2 for 13 and 2 for 30 in an innings victory. In his next match, against Griqualand West in Johannesburg in 1950–51 he took 2 for 22 and 8 for 8 (match figures of 24–8–30–10), bowling Griqualand West out for 29 in the second innings. In six matches he took 27 wickets at 14.40, and was selected to tour England in 1951. Despite missing several weeks of the tour owing to a hernia operation he headed the tour averages with 50 wickets at 20.28. However, he played only the Fifth Test (when he took figures of 10–6–9–4 in the first innings) the tour selectors preferring to use a two-man pace attack of McCarthy and Geoff Chubb for the first four Tests. He took his best innings and match figures for the tour after the Test series had finished: 2 for 22 and 6 for 71 against T.N. Pearce's XI at Scarborough. His form fell away somewhat in 1951–52 but in six matches he took 17 wickets at 27.35, and as McCarthy was unavailable and Chubb had retired Melle was selected to tour Australasia in 1952–53 as the most experienced of the four pace bowlers in the team. (Of the others, Eddie Fuller and Anton Murray had played no Tests, and John