Lives in Cricket No 1 - Allan Watkins

brought 357 runs at an average of 51, a prelude to an outstanding summer in 1954, a summer which would bring him a place for the first and only time in Playfair’s eleven cricketers of the year. In that miserably wet season, for the fourth year in a row, he topped his county’s batting averages. His 1,640 runs were the most he had made in an English summer, and his 170 not out against Leicestershire at Swansea was to remain the highest score of his career. For the first time he completed the double, his 103 wickets coming at 15.82 each. On seven occasions he captured five wickets in an innings, crowning his season with seven for 28 in the final match against Derbyshire at Chesterfield, the best analysis of his career, in which, at one stage, he took four wickets in five balls. There were 29 first-class catches to complete his contribution to Glamorgan’s rise to fourth place in the Championship, their best since 1948. The Best All-Rounder in English Cricket 75 Commonwealth skipper Ben Barnett taking the field with Allan.