Lives in Cricket No 1 - Allan Watkins

short or anything just outside my leg stick or even on the leg stick I used to sweep.” He recalls battles won against the best wrist spinners of his time. “Eric Hollies wouldn’t bowl leg spin at me; he bowled off spinners. Bruce Dooland didn’t want to bowl when I came in to bat, and Jack Walsh once said to me at Swansea, ‘For Christ’s sake, Allan, stay at this end and let me have a go at Emrys!’” Confronted by off spinners, turning the ball away from the left-hander, Allan resorted to the method advocated by Maurice Leyland when he had shared his batting secrets with the 17-year-old ground staff lad. He recalls playing Jim Laker at Swansea: “Right arm off spinner, leg breaks to me, I wouldn’t drive him. I just played him quietly and, when he dropped the ball on the leg stick, I swept it. I’d got about three fours down there and Arthur McIntyre said to me, ‘Allan, you do that once more and he’ll be off.’ So I swept him once more and he grabbed his cap and walked down to the sea end and that was the end of him. He took himself off!” As a bowler, Allan could take the new ball and then come back with his Toshack-style cutters over the wicket. His slower method developed in the later stages of his career. It never involved extravagant spin, but he was a master of control and he could move the ball enough off the English pitches of his time to pitch on The Best All-Rounder in English Cricket 77 Allan sweeping. The wicket-keeper is Surrey’s Arthur McIntyre.