Lives in Cricket No 1 - Allan Watkins

close of play on the second day. He had made his main contribution earlier in the match, first holding a fine catch off Trueman to get rid of Mankad and then enjoying a handy spell with the ball. Making good use of the slope from the pavilion end, he was dipping the ball into the batsmen’s pads, first bowling Phadkar then trapping Adhikari lbw. Allan was in the groove as seldom before in Test cricket. He later returned to have Shinde stumped by Evans, but his final figures of three for 37 might have been much better. “I was two for 14 bowling with the slope and Len Hutton took me off. Alec Bedser couldn’t believe it. He came across and said ‘What the hell’s he doing now?’ And, when he brought me back, he put me on the wrong flaming end.” Hutton, Allan always felt, never really appreciated his qualities. He had passed disdainful comment on his century in Johannesburg three years earlier and now, just when Allan had felt he deserved an extended spell, Hutton had removed him from the attack. “I’ve got nothing to thank Len Hutton for,” he says ruefully. Brought up with the most colourful of county skippers, Allan found Hutton a dull captain. “All the amateurs had life in them. There was no life in Len Hutton. He just stood there and he said this and he said that, but there was no smile on his face. There was no personality to him. I didn’t like hard men. I liked joyful men, people that skippered you with a laugh. I mean Wilf was a terror, but at certain times of a game he could smile, he could laugh and he’d even come out with a joke.” Allan was in fine form with the bat in the county game. Nine innings before the third Test at Old Trafford brought him five half-centuries with two scores over 90. But when the Test came he could manage only 4. With Trueman taking eight for 31, figures that would remain his best in Test cricket, India were dismissed for 58. Following on they made 82. Such dominance gave Allan no chance of a second innings, and as England’s third seamer he was redundant, bowling just four overs. Though his best seasons for Glamorgan lay ahead, Allan had played his last Test match. His place at The Oval went to Willie Watson, a specialist batsman, and when the Australians arrived in 1953 Trevor Bailey recovered the place he had lost early in 1951. His back-to-the-wall batting at Lord’s and his uncompromising leg-side bowling to snuff out the Australians’ victory quest at The Best All-Rounder in English Cricket 73