David Arthur Allen (29 October 1935 – 24 May 2014) was an English

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er who played

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 ...

for

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( , ; abbreviated Glos.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire ...

between

1953 Events January * January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma. * January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a Estonian government-in-exile, government-in-exile in Oslo. * January 14 ** Marshal Josip Broz Tito ...

and

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, ...

. He also played 39 Test matches for

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

between 1960 and 1966.

Life and career

A right-arm

off-break Off spin is a type of spin bowling in cricket. A bowler who uses this technique is called an off spinner. Off spinners bowl with their right-arm and a finger spin action. Their normal delivery is called an off break, which spins from left to ...

bowler, using a very short run, Allen was first selected for England in

1959 Events January * January 1 – Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 – Soviet lunar probe Luna 1 is the first human-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reaches the ...

and in

1960 It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism. Events January * Janu ...

was selected as the

Cricket Writers' Club Young Cricketer of the Year The Cricket Writers' Club Young Cricketer of the Year is an annual cricket award, presented to the young player who is adjudged to have been the best of the year in English county cricket. The award has been presented since the 1950 season and t ...

. Allen toured all the then-current Test-playing nations. He was a decent bat, his Test average higher than the

all-rounder An all-rounder is a cricketer who regularly performs well at both batting and bowling. Although all bowlers must bat and quite a handful of batsmen do bowl occasionally, most players are skilled in only one of the two disciplines and are cons ...

Fred Titmus Frederick John Titmus (24 November 1932 – 23 March 2011) was an English cricketer, whose first-class career, mostly for Middlesex with a short stint for Surrey, spanned five decades. He was the fourth man after W.G. Grace, Wilfred Rhode ...

and

Ray Illingworth Raymond Illingworth Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE (8 June 1932 – 25 December 2021) was an English cricketer, cricket commentator and administrator. , he was one of only nine players to have taken 2,000 wickets and made 20, ...

, and in the

1963 Events January * January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Cove ...

Lord's Lord's Cricket Ground, commonly known as Lord's, is a cricket List of Test cricket grounds, venue in St John's Wood, Westminster. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and is the home of Middlesex C ...

Test 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 ...

, he notably played out the final two balls of

Wes Hall Sir Wesley Winfield Hall (born 12 September 1937) is a Barbadian former cricketer and politician. A tall, strong and powerfully built man, Hall was a genuine fast bowler and despite his very long run up, he was renowned for his ability to bow ...

's last over for a draw. Allen had protected

Colin Cowdrey Michael Colin Cowdrey, Baron Cowdrey of Tonbridge, (24 December 1932 – 4 December 2000) was an English cricketer who played for Kent County Cricket Club from 1950 to 1976, and in 114 Test matches for England from 1954 to 1975. He was born i ...

at the other end, who was pressed in to bat with his broken arm in plaster. In the

1965–66 Ashes series The 1965–66 Ashes series consisted of five cricket Test matches, each of five days with six hours play and eight ball overs. It formed part of the MCC tour of Australia in 1965–66 and the matches outside the Tests were played in the name o ...

Allen made 50 not out in the Third Test at Sydney, adding 93 for the last two wickets, and took 2/42 and 4/47 as England won by an innings and 93 runs. Allen was also famous for being taken off against Australia. In the decisive Fourth Test at Old Trafford in 1961 he took three quick wickets to have Australia nine wickets down, but Alan Davidson hit him for 20 runs in an over and

Peter May Peter May may refer to: *Peter W. May, American hedge fund manager *Peter May (cricketer) (1929–1994), English Test cricketer *Peter May (writer) (born 1951), Scottish television screenwriter, novelist and crime writer *Peter May (weightlifter) ...

took him off. Davidson and

Graham McKenzie Graham Douglas McKenzie (born 24 June 1941) – commonly known as "Garth", after the comic strip hero – is an Australian cricketer who played for Western Australia (1960–74), Leicestershire (1969–75), Transvaal (1979–80) and Australi ...

added 98 for the last wicket and Australia won by 54 runs. Nevertheless, in six winters, Allen completed the set of playing against all the other Test playing nations of the time. In India and Pakistan in 1961–62, he bowled 482 overs in the eight Test matches alone. Allen came close to developing into an all-rounder on the level of his contemporary

. Playing fairly regularly for England throughout the first half of the 1960s, after 1966 he found it increasingly difficult to score enough runs or get enough bowling at county level as trends changed. Gloucestershire used three spin bowlers from the 1950s onwards but by the end of the 1960s

Mike Bissex Michael Bissex (born 28 September 1944) is an English former first-class cricketer. He played for Gloucestershire County Cricket Club from 1961 to 1972. Bissex joined the Gloucestershire ground-staff after leaving school at the age of 15. In 1 ...

and Allen were effectively doing the work of one bowler. Though Bissex lost form, the advent of

Sadiq Mohammad Sadiq Mohammad (, born 3 May 1945) is a Pakistani former Test cricketer and younger brother of the Pakistani batsmen Hanif and Mushtaq Mohammad. He made his Test debut in the first Test between Pakistan and New Zealand in 1969. The 4th Test agai ...

, a useful leg spinner, saw Allen fade away from the county side in 1972. Cricket commentator Colin Bateman noted that "towards the end of his 20 summers at Bristol his relationship with skipper Tony Brown, with whom he had grown up on a cricket field, became strained. Allen even found himself left out of his own

benefit match A benefit is a match or season of activities granted by a sporting body to a loyal sportsman to boost their income before retirement. Often this is in the form of a match for which all the ticket proceeds are given to the player in question. Howeve ...

". After he retired from cricket, Allen worked as an area manager for the Bristol wine merchants Harveys and then for

Allied Domecq Allied Domecq PLC was a multinational company, headquartered in Bristol, United Kingdom, that operated spirits, wine, and quick service restaurant businesses. It was once a FTSE 100 Index constituent and the world's second-largest spirits gro ...

. He was a member of the

Gloucestershire County Cricket Club Gloucestershire County Cricket Club, founded in 1870, is one of 18 first-class cricket, first-class county cricket, county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the Historic counties of England, hist ...

committee, and was elected club president in 2011. He died in May 2014, survived by his wife Joyce and their son and daughter.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, David 1935 births 2014 deaths English cricketers England Test cricketers English cricketers of 1946 to 1968 20th-century English sportsmen Gloucestershire cricketers Combined Services cricketers Commonwealth XI cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Players cricketers Cricketers from Bristol International Cavaliers cricketers T. N. Pearce's XI cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club Australian Touring Team cricketers