Sir George Oswald Browning “Gubby” Allen CBE was a cricketer who captained England in eleven Test matches. In first-class matches, he played for Middlesex and Cambridge University. Allen later became an influential cricket administrator who held key positions in the Marylebone Cricket Club. He was knighted in 1986 and spent his later years in a flat close to Lord’s.
About Gubby Allen in brief
Sir George Oswald Browning “Gubby” Allen CBE was a cricketer who captained England in eleven Test matches. In first-class matches, he played for Middlesex and Cambridge University. Allen later became an influential cricket administrator who held key positions in the Marylebone Cricket Club. He was knighted in 1986 and spent his later years in a flat close to Lord’s, where he died, aged 87, in 1989. Allen was born in Australia and grew up in England from the age of six. After playing cricket for Eton College, he went to Cambridge University where he established a reputation as a fast bowler, albeit one who was often injured. After leaving university, Allen played mainly for MiddlesEX. In 1963, he became MCC president, and was made the club’s treasurer the following year. As chairman of selectors from 1955 to 1961, he presided over a period of great success for English cricket, during which he worked closely with the Test captain Peter May. He died in 1989 and was survived by his wife, two daughters and a son. The family moved to London when Allen was six years old and lived in various country villages before moving to London in 1909. After being educated by a governess, Allen joined Summer Fields School in Oxford in 1912. He began to play cricket seriously at school; by his second year, he reached the school second team, from where he progressed to the first team then the captaincy. After a trial match in 1919, he was captain of the school’s second team and had reasonable success with the ball and bat.
In 1919 he was a housemaster at Eton, although he was not keen on the prospect, although it was a financial burden on his family. Allen played for his school’s first team and a spell in the second team in the winter of 1915–16. He later admitted to laziness and said his performance was no more than respectable, but his academic performance was respectable, and he later admitted that he had no more academic performance than he did in cricket. He continued to play irregularly until 1939; after the Second World War, he worked in military intelligence, and played occasionally for Middles Ex and other teams into the 1950s. In the late 1920s he was on the verge of the England Test team. In 1936 he was appointed England captain in 1936 and led the team during the 1936–37 tour of Australia, when the home team won 3–2 having lost the first two matches. As a criceter, Allen was affected by his lack of regular play and was at his most effective during his two tours of Australia when he was able to build up his form. At other times, his bowling was often erratic but occasionally devastating. He was instrumental in the creation of a MCC coaching manual, and worked hard to eliminate illegal bowling actions. In this role he was deeply involved in the D’Oliveira affair, a controversy over the potential selection of Basil D’ Oliveira to tour South Africa.
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