Alan Knott
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Template:Infobox Cricketer Alan Philip Eric Knott (born April 9, 1946) was an English cricketer, a wicket-keeper-batsman for the England Test side between 1967 and 1981.
Knott was born in Belvedere, Kent, and played for the Kent county side throughout his professional career. He gained his first Test cap at the age of 21, having been named Cricket Writers' Club Young Cricketer of the Year in 1965. In 1970 he was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year. He was particularly known for his habit of conducting limbering-up exercises at any inactive moment during a match. His major strengths were the sweep and the cut.
When he made his debut, it was against the Pakistani tourists in 1967. Batting at number 8, he made a duck in his first Test, at Trent Bridge, but didn't concede a single bye in the match. He made 28 in the second match, but didn't make the starting eleven for the 1967-68 tour of the West Indies, as Jim Parks was initially preferred. However, for the fourth and fifth matches of the series, he was picked again. In the first of those, he made his first Test half-century, a score of 69 not out, and he once again excelled at wicket-keeping.
In the 1969 Ashes series against Australia, pressure was beginning to build on his batting, though his keeping was still exemplary on difficult pitches. He conceded just twenty byes in the five games, effecting eleven dismissals.
In the winter of 1968, again against Pakistan, he confirmed his position as England's premier wicketkeeper-batsman. He made two fifties in the series, including a score of 96 not out at Karachi when the match was prematurely ended by a pitch invasion by Pakistani fans, denying him a well-deserved hundred.
It was two years later that he finally did make that maiden Test century, 110 at Auckland against New Zealand. He had missed the first match of that 1970-71 series, Bob Taylor taking the gloves solely as a reward for patience. Knott did not miss another Test until 1977, making a sum of five centuries and twenty-eight fifties in that time.
It was at that point that Knott was persuaded by England colleague Tony Greig to join Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket. This effectively put his England career on hold. However, when he returned to Tests after the end of World Series Cricket in 1980, he had very little success against a mighty West Indian side, averaging 5.14 in the series. He did not play in the tour of the West Indies that immediately followed, but was picked for the final two Tests of the famous 1981 Ashes series. Fittingly for one of England's greatest players, he ended his last Test with a score of 70 not out and an England series win.
External links
- Cricinfo Player Profile : Alan Philip Eric Knott (http://usa.cricinfo.com/db/PLAYERS/ENG/K/KNOTT_APE_01001301/)