Alan Paul Igglesden (8 October 1964 – 1 November 2021) was an English

Test cricket Test cricket is a Forms of cricket, format of the sport of cricket, considered the game’s most prestigious and traditional form. Often referred to as the "ultimate test" of a cricketer's skill, endurance, and temperament, it is a format of i ...

er. He played three Test matches and four

One Day International One Day International (ODI) is a format of cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of fifty overs, with the game lasting up to 7 hours. The World Cup, generally held every four yea ...

s (ODIs) for the

England cricket team The England men's cricket team represents cricket in England, England and cricket in Wales, Wales in international cricket. Since 1997, it has been governed by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), having been previously governed by Maryleb ...

between 1989 and 1994 as a fast bowler. He played most of his

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

career for

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ken ...

, taking 592 wickets for the club.

Cricket career

Igglesden was born in Farnborough, at that time part of

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, in 1964.Alan Igglesden

CricInfo ESPNcricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a Sports journalism, sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including Liveblogging, liveblogs and sco ...

. Retrieved 20 November 2017. As a teenager, Igglesden played for his home town club, Westerham Cricket Club in Kent, and his pacey seam bowling was instrumental in the club retaining its North Kent League title in 1983. He first played for

's Second XI in 1983 before making his

debut for the county in July 1986 against

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

Maidstone Maidstone is the largest Town status in the United Kingdom, town in Kent, England, of which it is the county town. Maidstone is historically important and lies east-south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the centre of the town, l ...

. He went on to play for Kent until August 1998, making 283 appearances for the Kent First XI and taking 592 first-class and List A wickets. He took 50 first-class wickets in a season for Kent four times and recorded 19

five wicket haul In cricket, a five-wicket haul (also known as a "five–for" or "fifer") occurs when a bowler takes five or more wickets in a single innings. This is regarded by critics as a notable achievement, equivalent to a century from a batter. Taking ...

s and two ten wicket matches for the county;Alan Igglesden dies aged 57 after long battle with brain tumour

, 1 November 2021. Retrieved 2 November 2021.Bowling records, in ''Kent County Cricket Club Annual 2017'', pp.197–205. Canterbury:

.Alan Igglesden
CricketArchive. Retrieved 20 November 2017. in 1989 he took 90 wickets for Kent in 42 matches and was awarded his

county cap In sport, a cap is a player's appearance in a game at international level. The term dates from the practice in the United Kingdom of awarding a cap to every player in an international match of rugby football and association football. In the e ...

. He played in South Africa for

Western Province Western Province or West Province may refer to: *Western Province, Cameroon *Western Province, Rwanda *Western Province (Kenya) *Western Province (Papua New Guinea) *Western Province (Solomon Islands) *Western Province, Sri Lanka *Western Provinc ...

and Boland and finished his county career by appearing for

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...

in the

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship or National County Championship is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national counties (previously ca ...

in 1999. Igglesden made his international debut for England in the final Test of the

1989 Ashes series The 1989 Ashes series was a series of Test cricket matches contested between England and Australia for the Ashes. It formed part of the 1989 Australian tour of England. The six-Test series began on 8 June 1989 at Headingley in Leeds and ended on ...

. His elevation to Test cricketer owed much to a catalogue of injuries to other players and came in the wake of one of the rebel tours to South Africa which denied England the opportunity to pick players who had been involved with the tour. England manager,

Micky Stewart Michael James Stewart (born 16 September 1932) is an English former cricketer, coach and administrator. A right-handed batsman, Stewart's international career was hampered by illness that curtailed his first overseas tour – serving as vice-c ...

, described Igglesden as being England's "seventeenth-choice" pace bowler. Igglesden took three wickets on his debut, and was the England A team's leading bowler on their tour of Zimbabwe in 1989/90, taking 5 for 33 in the third unofficial "Test". But he was then not picked again by England until 1993.Moore G (1993
Cricket: Bad luck dogs Kent's big man: Alan Igglesden could again be robbed of his Test chance by injury. Glenn Moore reports
''

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'', 26 June 1993. Retrieved 20 November 2017. In 1993, Igglesden was picked for the first Test, again against

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, and it appeared he may have had a few games to prove his worth. In the end, he did not play in a single Test that summer, courtesy of a groin injury and then a side strain. He did appear twice in Tests and in four ODIs against the

West Indies The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...

in 1993/94, but took only three Test wickets and was not picked again.

Later life

Igglesden suffered a seizure whilst playing for Berkshire in 1999 and,Alan Igglesden raises funds for Professional Cricketers' Trust after two-decade battle with brain tumour

, 5 May 2021. Retrieved 2 November 2021. after a routine

MRI scan Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to generate pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes inside the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and ra ...

, doctors discovered a non-malignant but inoperable

brain tumour A brain tumor (sometimes referred to as brain cancer) occurs when a group of cells within the brain turn cancerous and grow out of control, creating a mass. There are two main types of tumors: malignant (cancerous) tumors and benign (non-cancero ...

.Petropoulos T (2004
'Being alive is all that counts'

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, 26 December 2004. Retrieved 20 November 2017.Armstrong R (2008
The greatest Test of all: Alan Igglesden on surviving a brain tumour
''

'', 31 March 2008. Retrieved 20 November 2017. He was treated with radiotherapy and drugs which initially led to a significant reduction in the size of the tumour. After his retirement from cricket, he became a sports centre manager at

Woodhouse Grove School Woodhouse Grove School ('The Grove') is a Private schools in the United Kingdom, private, co-educational, Boarding school, day and boarding school and sixth form. it is located to the north of Apperley Bridge, West Yorkshire, England (Apperle ...

. He has also taught at

Sutton Valence School Sutton Valence School (SVS) is a private school near Maidstone in southeast England. It has 560 pupils. It is a co-educational day and boarding school, boarding school. There are three senior boarding houses: Westminster, St Margaret's and Sutto ...

Where are they now? Kent – 1995 AXA Sunday League winners
''The Cricket Paper'', 2 June 2015. Retrieved 20 November 2017. and later at

Apperley Bridge Apperley Bridge is a village in the metropolitan borough of the City of Bradford, in West Yorkshire, England in the Idle and Thackley Ward. Apperley Bridge is north-east of Bradford on the boundary with the City of Leeds bounded in the east b ...

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

. Igglesden was part of a charity supporting brain tumour sufferers, raising over £300,000 for

The Brain Tumour Charity The Brain Tumour Charity is a British charitable organization, charity dedicated to funding research, raising awareness of brain tumours, reducing diagnosis times and providing support and information for people with brain tumours, their familie ...

as well as fundraising for the Professional Cricketers' Trust. His brain tumour began to grow again in 2009, and Igglesden suffered two major strokes, the first in 2018. He died on 1 November 2021, at the age of 57.Alan Igglesden: Ex-England and Kent bowler dies aged 57
''

BBC Sport BBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC, providing national sports coverage for BBC BBC Television, television, BBC Radio, radio and BBC Online, online. The BBC holds the television and radio UK broadcasting rights to several sports, broadc ...

'', 1 November 2021. Retrieved 1 November 2021.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Igglesden, Alan 1964 births 2021 deaths People from Farnborough, London Cricketers from the London Borough of Bromley English cricketers England Test cricketers England One Day International cricketers Boland cricketers Kent cricketers Western Province cricketers Berkshire cricketers Deaths from brain cancer in England 20th-century English sportsmen