Frank Allan

Frank Allan

Allan, 1878
Personal information
Full name	Francis Erskine Allan
Born	(1849-12-02)2 December 1849 Allansford, Victoria, Australia
Died	9 February 1917(1917-02-09) (aged 67) Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Batting	Right-handed
Bowling	Left arm medium
International information
National side	Australia
Only Test (cap 15)	2 January 1879 v England
Career statistics
Competition Test First-class Matches 1 31 Runs scored 5 371 Batting average 5.00 10.91 100s/50s 0/0 0/0 Top score 5 35* Balls bowled 180 Wickets 4 123 Bowling average 20.00 13.31 5 wickets in innings 0 11 10 wickets in match 0 2 Best bowling 2/30 8/20 Catches/stumpings 0/0 14/0
Source: Cricinfo, 15 August 2022

Francis Erskine Allan (2 December 1849 – 9 February 1917) was an Australian cricketer who represented Victoria in first-class intercolonial matches and made one Test appearance for Australia. A tall, wiry left-arm medium pacer known by the sobriquet "The Bowler of a Century", Allan possessed great spin and a peculiar swerve which he claimed to have developed through his use of boomerangs and waddies growing up amongst Aboriginal people in the Victorian bush. He was also given the nickname "Kangaroo" because he would jump like a kangaroo to celebrate taking a wicket.

Allan began a lifelong association with the South Melbourne Cricket Club in 1866 when he played for the side in his first ever match. Winning the club bowling average that season, he was quickly recognised as a natural of unusual ability, and in 1867, aged seventeen, made his first-class debut for Victoria against New South Wales, taking a first innings five-wicket haul in a performance described by William Hammersley as "unprecedented".^[1] Allan became the mainstay of Victoria's bowling attack, securing extraordinary figures in a series of intercolonial victories, and played havoc with W. G. Grace's touring England XI in 1873–74. Grace offered to employ Allan as a professional, stating that he had never batted against a greater bowler.

In 1878, Allan formed part of the first representative Australian cricket team to tour overseas. Dogged by illness for much of the tour, Allan failed to live up to his reputation as he struggled to adapt to England's cool and damp conditions. He played in his only Test match the following year on the Melbourne Cricket Ground, against Lord Harris' All-England Eleven, and had an opportunity to appear in the first ever Test, in 1877, facing James Lillywhite's XI, but controversially opted out at the last moment to attend a funfair in Warrnambool. Apart from bowling, Allan was also a fine fieldsman and an effective lower order batsman with an individual "mud-scrapping style" that others found amusing and "villainously ugly".^[2]

In the off-season, Allan played Australian rules football, first for South Melbourne as a successful goalsneak, and later for Albert Park in the fledgling Victorian Football Association. Allan took to many other sports, most notably billiards, shooting, and, after retiring from cricket, bowls. He was also a keen angler, remarking that he "would rather have a day's fishing on good water than play in the biggest of matches",^[3] and according to prominent naturalist Donald Macdonald, Allan "knew more about fish and fishing than anyone in Australia".^[4] Outside sport, Allan worked in the public service as Victoria's Chief Inspector of Vermin Destruction, and strived to protect Australian fauna and flora.