Lives in Cricket No 1 - Allan Watkins

ball to leg, Watkins dived swiftly to his right and with one hand inches from the turf grasped the catch as he rolled over.’ It is a catch, his first for England, that Allan still re-lives. He had been taught by Arnold Dyson to study each batsman closely and, noticing that Nourse pushed at Wright’s googly with a strong right hand, he had asked his captain if he could move squarer. Then the catch popped up. “The amazing thing about it is that I caught the thing in my right hand. Denis was there. He said, ‘Jesus Christ! Don’t get up, I’ll pick you up!’” Supported by more fine catching, the two pace bowlers, Alec Bedser and Cliff Gladwin, accounted for the home team for only 161 but, when England came to bat, they soon found themselves battling on a rain-damaged pitch which dried out to provide an ideal surface for South Africa’s two finger spinners, Athol Rowan and ‘Tufty’ Mann. With 83 from Hutton and a painstaking 72 from Compton, England led by 92 on first innings, but the leg spin of Wright and Jenkins was less well suited to the conditions and useful middle order knocks enabled South Africa to set a fourth innings target of 128. With rain having taken its toll of the playing time, England had two hours and a quarter to score the runs, but hold ups for injury and 48 South African Adventure Allan’s amazing catch to dismiss Dudley Nourse in the First Test at Durban