Late call for South Africa's Dane Vilas carries echoes of Yorkshire's Arthur Mitchell

“As grim as a piece of stone from Baildon Moor,” was Herbert Sutcliffe’s verdict. “Too hard for me,” proclaimed Len Hutton.

Mitchell, who batted for Yorkshire in the inter-war period, and later served the county as a coach, was not a man to be ordered about lightly.

This was shown in 1935 when he was called up at the 11th hour for the Headingley Test against South Africa.

When Yorkshire batsman Maurice Leyland was taken ill on the morning of the match, the Yorkshire captain Brian Sellers was instructed to rush to Mitchell’s home in Baildon to fetch him to take Leyland’s place.

Sellers found Mitchell in his garden, busily tending to his roses and in no mood to be disturbed.

Sellers explained that Leyland had been taken sick and that they would have to leave immediately to get to Headingley in time for the start of the match.

Mitchell ummed and ahed, grumbled and groaned, before finally relenting: “Oh, alright, then, just let me tidy me’sen up a bit.”

The story returned to mind yesterday when Dane Vilas was dramatically called up for the third Test between South Africa and England in Johannesburg.

Quinton de Kock, the South Africa wicketkeeper-batsman, withdrew with a twisted knee only a few hours before play, and Vilas was flown in from Port Elizabeth, some 1,000 kilometres south, only arriving at the Wanderers 45 minutes after the match had begun.

It is not known whether Vilas, on receiving news of his own call-up, was moved to mutter, ‘Oh, alright then, just let me tidy me’sen up a bit” before reluctantly removing a pair of gardening gloves, but the parallels were irresistible.

It is quite refreshing, in fact, that such a situation could arise in the ultra-professional world of modern sport, where nothing is left to chance and seemingly every eventuality taken into account.

Vilas’s call-up prompted much tinkering with the South African line-up.

Had de Kock been fit, he would probably have opened the batting, allowing JP Duminy to slot in at No 7 and bowl some off-spin.

Instead, Stiaan van Zyl was retained as opener, wicketkeeper Vilas slotted in at No 7, and Duminy was left out, South Africa opting for an all-seam attack.

After the hosts won the toss, they made 267-7, with Vilas coming to the crease at 185-5.

Dropped after a poor run of scores in the recent Test series in India, he had responded with a career-best 216 for Cape Cobras against the Lions only last week.

But Vilas was unable to match ‘Ticker’ Mitchell’s achievement of scoring a half-century after his call-up, the Yorkshireman hitting 58 and 72 in that drawn Test in 1935.

After progressing to 26, Vilas top-edged a pull off Stuart Broad and was caught at deep-backward square-leg by Moeen Ali.

Instead, as England chase the victory that would give them a 2-0 lead with one Test to play, it was Vilas’s opposite number who caught the eye.

Jonny Bairstow, the Yorkshire and England batsman-wicketkeeper, answered recent criticism of his performances behind the stumps by delivering a model display that built on his maiden Test hundred in Cape Town.

Bairstow caught the first four batsmen – only the second England wicketkeeper to achieve that feat after Jack Russell against Australia at Melbourne in 1990.

He also completed the run-out of Temba Bavuma by collecting a throw from substitute fielder Chris Woakes from mid-on and breaking the stumps in one free-flowing move.

It was a spectacular piece of athleticism, although one unlikely to have found favour with the gruff Mitchell, who played six Tests between 1933 and 1936.

For when his Yorkshire team-mate Ellis Robinson once took a magnificent diving catch, the cheers of the crowd ringing in his ears, Mitchell famously barked: “Gerrup, tha’s makkin an exhibition o’thisen.”

Mitchell, however, was greatly respected – not least by Fred Trueman, who was coached by him after the war.

Trueman once asked Mitchell’s son what his father would have thought of modern players hugging and kissing.

“Put it this way,” his son replied, “I can’t even remember him hugging and kissing my mother.”