Foxes Flashback - Alan Mullally
Sun 12 Jul 2020
Alan Mullally (born 12th July 1969)
Alan Mullally (known as Spider, cricketer’s nicknames have never been particularly original) was a nomadic left arm fast bowler, who was a key member of Leicestershire’s team in the 1990s.
He was born in Essex, which gave him that valuable birth qualification for England, but was brought up in Western Australia. He even played a Under 19 test match for Australia. Like many other young Australians, he spent some time in England and played in the Hampshire junior sides in 1988, but 40 wickets @ 35 runs each was clearly not outstanding.
The Australian manager Bobby Simpson had taken over the Leicestershire team, so coming to the county was a shrewd move for Alan. He was unlucky in his first year, 1990, that the powers that be deemed that a ‘seamless ball’ was used in county cricket. All the batsmen thought it was a summer packed full of Christmas days and racked up huge scores whilst the bowlers suffered.
Apart from 1991, he generally took around 50 wickets a season and played the first of his 19 tests in 1996 against India. In 2000 he moved to Hampshire where he played until he retired in 2005.
As a batsman, his position was 11, and he always looked happy with that situation. He would return with a score of 2 not out because the man at the other end had realised it was ‘have a go’ time, or nought, because he had made that decision first.
On two occasions he scored 50 and put on over a hundred for the last wicket. Both happened in the Championship winning summer of 1996. First, he made 68 out of 105 for the 10th wicket with Adrian Pierson v Surrey at The Oval, a very restrained innings which lasted 2 and a half hours. In the final match of that season, he made his top score of 75 putting on 112 for the 10th wicket with Phil Simmons v Middlesex. This innings lasted just 55 minutes and he hit 6 fours and 4 sixes. Poor old Middlesex just did not know where to bowl, hardly surprising that their batting collapsed later on that afternoon, to leave Leicestershire with the championship! These were his only first-class innings of more than 40.
Overall, he took 708 first class wickets (at 28) (including 58 for England) and in one day matches, 362 (at 28).
