Lives in Cricket No 1 - Allan Watkins

about everything,’ wrote Jack Fingleton. “I didn’t know any of the team really,” Allan agrees. “I felt a bit lonely. And coming from a side of Welshmen, you know how noisy they can be. With Glamorgan there was a lot of back chat and pulling your leg, and suddenly I was in a team that were all individuals. It was sort of quiet and a bit dignified really.” Allan found a soul mate in Eric Hollies, and several others would become good friends in South Africa, but in his first Test Allan felt that he hardly belonged in the England dressing room. It was no more welcoming in the middle as he faced up to the world’s most feared fast bowler with three wickets already under his belt. “Lindwall bounced me,” he recalls, “and of course I was always a hooker. He hit me on the shoulder and it went down to third man somewhere.” Soon Allan was struck on the pads, playing across a ball from Bill Johnston. “Dai Davies said he had great pleasure giving me out lbw!” 42 for 6, when Allan was dismissed, would soon become 52 all out. Only once, in Test cricket’s earliest days, had an England team been dismissed for fewer. Still awaiting his first Test run, Allan retired to the dressing room where he found Herbert Strudwick. “I pulled off my clothes and Struddy said, ‘Christ, Allan, what the hell’s happened to you? Look at your shoulder.’ It was all black and blue.” Team physio Bill Tucker inspected the damage and Allan was quickly strapped up with Elastoplast across his left shoulder and down his body. Wisden was later to note that the blow to Allan’s shoulder had ‘destroyed his supposed value as a bowler,’ but his plight seemed lost on Norman Yardley: “What do you think the bloody skipper did? He only gave me the new ball to bowl!” Barnes and Morris opened the batting for Australia and for four overs Allan did his best, but his bowling, The Times observed, ‘lacked both length and direction and he was accordingly hit unceremoniously by both batsmen.’ “My arm was falling off. I said, ‘It’s no use, skipper, I can’t do anything.’ So I came off and Reg Simpson came on as twelfth man.” When Allan returned to the field, the first wicket was still to fall and the pitch was growing easier for batting. At 117 Hollies ‘enticed Barnes just for once to grope at the ball’ and Godfrey Evans pouched the catch. Allan joined with the rest of the England team as the captain called three cheers for the incoming Don Bradman. At forward short leg he had a box seat for the Don’s final Called Up For England 40