obituary of Alan Davidson | Australia cricket team

Cricket player Alan Davidson, who has died aged 92, was one of Australia’s top opening bowlers and a key figure in his country’s pace attack in the 1950s and early 1960s. An extremely controlled exponent of swing and seam, he took his Test wickets at 20 runs apiece, one of the lowest averages in modern times and aside from Pakistani Wasim Akram is widely regarded as the greatest left arm pace bowler in the games . history.

Davidson had a nimble and fluid action that was coupled with frugality: he took no more than 15 strides throughout his career, yet generated a decent pace in such a short run, and he could be very fast if he wanted to. He was also a reckless lower-middle-class batter who scored nine first-class centuries. Many, including his longtime captain Richie Benaud, considered him a true all-rounder.

Although often described as broad-shouldered and burly throughout his career, Davidson as a youngster was below average size and didn’t begin to develop his 14-stone physique until his late teens, when he shot up to 6ft.

He was born in Lisarow, a farming hamlet in the Central Coast region of New South Wales, to Hilda (née Clifton) and Keith Davidson. A natural sportsman from a cricketing family, after attending the local high school in Gosford he became a bank clerk and at the age of 19 he settled in Sydney when his employers moved him there where he played cricket for Northern District.

He was soon picked for New South Wales, and after playing in just three Sheffield Shield matches, he was selected for the Australian reserve team tour of New Zealand in 1950, at the age of 20. Against Wairarapa on that trip he took 10 wickets in an inning (10-29) and with a century in the same match (157 not out) followed a double virtually unprecedented at any level of cricket.

However, after such a meteoric rise, Davidson was sidelined for the next two years as Australia decided to keep an eye on his progress. He continued to learn his trade with New South Wales but was rarely able to open bowling there as the new ball was the domain of two greats of the game, Keith Miller and Ray Lindwall.

In 1952, Davidson received three separate offers to play lucrative cricket in England, but rejected them all because he wanted to stay on the national selectors’ radar at home.

Australia finally called out again in 1953, when Davidson toured England and played his first Test in Nottingham in June of that year. For his first four years with Australia, he was more of a solid than a spectacular performer, in part because he continued to operate in the long shadow of Miller and Lindwall. But Miller withdrew from Test cricket in 1956 and Lindwalls appearances were more sporadic after that.

On the 1957-58 tour of South Africa, where he first consistently took the new ball, Davidson took 72 wickets. Over the next five years, he became the most effective opening bowler in international cricket, as well as a dangerous six-stroke presence with the bat and an excellent fielder close to the wicket, earning the nickname the Claw for his ability to strike the ball. to hold the ball. on to difficult catches.

In the 1958-59 home run against England, Davidson took 24 Test wickets at an average of 19 as Australia won 4-0, and in India in 1959-60 he had 29 wickets under 15 each, including seven for 93 in the second Test at Kanpur.

He was widely regarded as the main force behind Australias 2-1 win in the delightfully entertaining 1960-61 home run against a strong side from the West Indies, taking 33 wickets at an average of 18.55 runs. In the famous first Test of that series in Brisbane, he became the first player to take 10 wickets and score over 100 runs in a Test match, something only three other players have since achieved.

Two successful runs against England followed in 1961 when he took 23 wickets at 24.87 while Australia won 21, and at home in 1962-63 when he had 24 wickets in the equal run at an average of 20, despite the fact that he only three full Tests due to injury.

After being named Wisden Cricket Player of the Year in 1962, Davidson decided to retire after that streak at age 33. He took a wicket from his last ball in Test Cricket and did the same with his last delivery in the first-class match, clear bowling Garfield Sobers, who was playing for South Australia at the time.

In total, Davidson played 44 Tests, taking 186 wickets at 20.53 each, an average surpassed only by five other bowlers since the early 1900s. He also scored 1,328 test runs at 24.59 and took 672 wickets at 20.90 in first-class cricket, with a batting average of 32.86.

After his playing career came to an end, he was President of the New South Wales Cricket Association (1970-2003) and National Test Selector (1979-84). He has also served on the boards of several community-oriented organizations, including: Surf Life Saving Australia and the Anzac Health and Research Foundation. In 1964 he was named an MBE.

In 1952 he married Betty McKinley. She and their two sons, Neil and Ian, survive him.