Ian David Austin (born 30 May 1966) is a retired English

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 ...

er. He made his first-class debut for

Lancashire County Cricket Club Lancashire Cricket Club represents the Historic counties of England, historic county of Lancashire in Cricket in England, English cricket. The club has held first-class cricket, first-class status since it was founded in 1864. Lancashire's ho ...

in 1987 (having played a single Sunday League match for them the previous season) and remained with that county for his entire career, scoring 3,778 runs at 27.98 and taking 262 wickets at 30.35 with his medium-pace seamers in his 124 matches. He also took 363 wickets in

List A cricket List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the num ...

. Enormously popular with the Lancashire crowd thanks to his uncomplicated batting style and equally old-fashioned waistline, his most successful period came towards the end of his career. In 1998, he helped his county to both

NatWest Trophy The Friends Provident Trophy was a one-day cricket competition in the United Kingdom. It was one of the four tournaments in which the eighteen first-class counties competed each season. They were joined by teams from Scotland and Ireland. Lan ...

and Sunday League success, winning the

man of the match In team sport, a player of the match award (also known as man of the match or woman of the match) is often given to the most outstanding player in a particular match. This can be a player from either team, although the player is generally chose ...

award in the final of the former. He then made his

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 ...

debut against

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later in the summer. For these performances he was made one of 1999's

Wisden Cricketers of the Year The ''Wisden'' Cricketers of the Year are cricketers selected for the honour by the annual publication ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', based "primarily for their influence on the previous English season". The award began in 1889 with the naming ...

. Austin was selected for the 1999 World Cup squad, and opened the bowling with

Darren Gough Darren Gough (born 18 September 1970) is a retired English cricketer and former captain of Yorkshire County Cricket Club. The spearhead of England's bowling attack through much of the 1990s, he is England's second highest wicket-taker in one-d ...

in England's opening game, taking 2/25 against

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 ...

. However, his international career was to last just one more match, against

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later in the same tournament. He spent the rest of his career at Lancashire, where his benefit in 2000 raised £155,000. Austin played no first-class cricket after early June 2001, but continued to appear in some one-day games for another year. A useful lower-order batsman, Austin made two first-class centuries. The first of these came in a

Roses match The Roses Match refers to any game of cricket played between Yorkshire County Cricket Club and Lancashire County Cricket Club. Yorkshire's emblem is the white rose, while Lancashire's is the red rose. The associations go back to the Wars of the R ...

in 1991, while batting at no.10. Austin is one of few players to have won the man of the match award in a final of both the

and the

Benson and Hedges Cup The Benson & Hedges Cup was a one-day cricket competition for first-class counties in England and Wales that was held from 1972 to 2002, one of cricket's longest sponsorship deals. It was the third major one-day competition established in Engla ...

, having achieved the latter in 1996. After some appearances for

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is an area of North West England which was historically a county. The county was bordered by Northumberland to the north-east, County Durham to the east, Westmorland to the south-east, Lancashire to the south, and the Scottish ...

in 2002, and participating in the Lancashire League's Worsley Cup final the following year, Austin retired from first-class cricket at the end of the 2003 season. He returned to the Leagues playing with distinction for St Annes in the Northern Premier League, before returning to his boyhood club, Baxenden and helping them to the Ribblesdale League title, before retiring from all cricket at the end of the 2010 season.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Austin, Ian 1966 births Living people English cricketers England One Day International cricketers Lancashire cricketers Wisden Cricketers of the Year Sportspeople from Haslingden Cumberland cricketers Cricketers from Lancashire 20th-century English sportsmen