Basil George von Brandis Melle (31 March 1891 — 8 January 1966) was a South African cricketer and paediatrician.
David Frith, the cricket historian, saw Melle as playing a role in the origins of bodyline bowling.
A finger injury and outbreak of the First World War disrupted his bowling, and when first-class cricket resumed in 1919, Melle was rarely utilised as a bowler.
[6] Melle gained a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford in England in 1912, where he studied medicine at Brasenose College.
[12] Shortly before first-class cricket was suspended due to the war, Melle made three appearances for Hampshire in the County Championship in July and August.
[4] In the last of these three, against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, he had bowled six overs when he received a telegram calling him for military service with the Oxford University Contingent of the King's Colonial Corps, two days after war had been declared on Germany.
[16] He was appointed an adjutant in March 1917,[17] but five months later he resigned his commission in order to resume his medical studies at Oxford, being granted the honorary rank of captain.
[18] Resuming his studies at Oxford, he achieved his MB in 1919 and proceeded to train at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College.
[25] The cricket historian David Frith considers Melle as having played a role in the origins of fast leg theory bowling,[7] which would later gain great prominence during the 1932–33 Ashes series in Australia.
[26] Melle died in Johannesburg in January 1966;[9] his son, Michael, played Test cricket for South Africa.