Lives in Cricket No 1 - Allan Watkins

Carr explains, “and the amateurs were in first class and the pros were in second class. We thought it a bit off, but it was rather funny. We had a rather nice couchette area and quite a good meal and settled down for the night. We hoped the boys were all right, but we didn’t check up too carefully.” Passing through desert on its way, the train arrived next morning at Bahawalpur. Donald Carr and his fellow amateurs had passed a comfortable night. “We were brought a cup of tea and I said to Geoffrey, ‘Shall I let the troops out now?’ We turned out in our smart blazers and hats – we always wore hats to look the part – and I went down to the truck at the back. There facing me as I pulled the doors open was Allan absolutely covered in red dust, his little eyes peering out. I said, ‘Come on, are you all right?’ He said, ‘It’s all right for you f——g amateurs!’ I roared with laughter. I said, ‘You’re getting paid, Watty! We’re amateurs.’ It lasted about a week, his anger. It’s almost my favourite recollection of Watty.” The journey to Karachi ahead of the second ‘Test’, as Allan recounts it, gave the players different reasons for concern: “We went in one of those old cargo planes. The pilot took us down and we went in to land at the ordinary airport, but they wouldn’t let us down. So we had to go to their RAF airfield. We went wobbling across Karachi and when we came down we finished up facing the wrong way. The plane went round on its wheels after landing. The poor old pilot wouldn’t come back. They usually came back and we thanked them, but he wouldn’t come back. We learnt later that it was the first time the poor bugger had flown at night.” Entering their final match in Pakistan, the tourists were fortunate to have their unbeaten record intact. Soon it would be challenged. The first ‘Test’ in Lahore had been played on a beautiful turf pitch, but now they were back on coconut matting. “It was a hard shale strip with the mat on top,” says Tom Graveney, “and depending on whether they were batting or fielding they loosened the mat.” “I remember that,” says Allan. “It was my job to make sure they rolled it properly.” Graveney top scored with 19 as England were skittled for 123. “Fazal Mahmood made the ball talk,” he says. “He bowled medium-paced cutters and bounced it both ways.” Good bowling by Statham and Shackleton restricted the first innings deficit to just seven, after which a splendid century by Graveney set Pakistan 285 to win. With the umpires turning down every appeal for lbw, a 16-year-old Hanif Mohammad paved the way to Senior Professional in India 65