Allan Border

Allan Robert Border (born 27 July 1955) is an Australian cricket commentator and former international cricketer.

Border attended North Sydney Boys High School, and earned his leaving certificate in 1972.

Throughout his early years, Border played in cricket teams two or three years older than his age group.

He also played for Mosman Baseball Club, where he developed his fielding and horizontal-bat shots.

Aged sixteen, he made his début for Mosman in Sydney Grade Cricket as a left arm orthodox spinner and batted at number nine.

He won selection for the 1972–73 Combined High Schools team in the intrastate carnival.

During this time, he was coached by Barry Knight, a former England international.

Border accumulated more than 600 runs in grade cricket in 1975–76, and at the start of the following season, he made two consecutive centuries to earn selection for NSW.

In the absence of a number of Test players, Border made his debut against Queensland at the SCG in January 1977.

He compiled 36 and took the last three catches of the match, as his team claimed victory.

Border resigned from his job as a clerk in the film library of BP to spend the 1977 English season playing for Downend in the Gloucestershire Western League.

The highlight of his stay was 159 not out in an invitational match against Cambridge University.

In Australia, Border compiled 617 runs at 36.29 average during the 1977–78 Sheffield Shield season.

He then returned to England and played for East Lancashire Cricket Club in the Lancashire League, scoring 1191 runs at 56.71 and taking 54 wickets at 18.60.

In 1977, the breakaway professional competition World Series Cricket (WSC) signed many players who were then banned from first-class and Test cricket, thus leaving many vacancies in the Australian team.

Border started the 1978–79 season with his maiden first-class century, 135 against Western Australia at Perth, and followed up with 114 against Victoria at the SCG.

After Australia lost the first two Tests in the Ashes series, Border was selected for his Test debut at the MCG.

Making a nervous start, he took more than half an hour to score three runs.

He made 29 and was run out for a duck in the second innings while attempting a single.

In the following Test at Sydney, he was in a "lonely class of his own" by top-scoring in both innings with 60 not out and 45 not out as Australia lost the match and the Ashes.

He used his feet to the spinners as his teammates struggled to cope with the turn.

However, after scores of 11 and 1 in the Fifth Test at Adelaide he was dropped for the Sixth Test.

This was the only test he missed in his entire career; he played in all of Australia's next 153 tests.

Recalled for the First Test against Pakistan at the MCG, Border batted at No. 3 and hit his maiden Test century as Australia reached 3/305, chasing 382 for victory.

A batsman, Border was for many years the captain of the Australian team, and led his team to victory in the 1987 Cricket World Cup, the maiden world title for Australia.

His playing nickname was "A.B.".

He played 156 Test matches in his career, a record until it was passed by fellow Australian Steve Waugh.

Border amassed 11,174 Test runs (a world record until it was passed by Brian Lara in 2006).

He hit 27 centuries in his Test career.

He retired as Australia's most-capped player and leading run-scorer in both Tests and ODIs.

His Australian record for Test Match runs stood for 15 years before Ricky Ponting overtook him during the Third Ashes Test against England in July 2009.

Border was one of the 55 inaugural inductees of the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

In 2009 as part of the Q150 celebrations, Allan Border was announced as one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland for his role as a "sports legend".

In 2016, Border was a recipient of the Queensland Greats Awards.

In a fan poll conducted by the CA in 2017, he was named in the country's best Ashes XI in the last 40 years.

Born in Cremorne, a North Shore suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Border grew up with three brothers in the nearby suburb of Mosman.

His father John, from Coonamble in rural New South Wales, was a wool classer and his mother Sheila was the proprietor of a corner store.

The family had a spacious backyard for playing games, and Mosman Oval, the home of district cricket, football, hockey and baseball clubs, was across the street.

Border formerly held the world record for the number of consecutive Test appearances of 153, before it was surpassed in June 2018 by Alastair Cook, and is second on the list of number of Tests as captain.

He was primarily a left-hand batsman but also had occasional success as a part-time left-arm orthodox spinner.