Geoffrey Attenborough

Geoffrey Robert Attenborough (born 17 January 1951) is a former South Australian cricketer who is considered unlucky by some judges to not have played for Australia [Mival, A (2000) "Players with Test case", "Sunday Mail" (Adelaide), 19 March 2000.] .

Born in Mile End, Adelaide, Attenborough is a left-arm fast-medium bowler and right-hand batsman who played for the Sturt cricket club before making his debut for South Australia on 3 March 1973 against Western Australia at the WACA, taking 2/64 and scoring one and five.

Attenborough soon gained a reputation for his ability to swing the ball both ways and led the South Australian attack throughout the late 1970s. He gained the nickname "Horse" for his willingness to bowl long spells in the heat of the afternoon as well as "Scatters", for reasons less well known [Cashman, R., Franks, W. et al (1997) "The A - Z of Australian Cricketers", Oxford University Press: Melbourne. ISBN 019550604 9.] .

In 1977/78 Attenborough achieved his best match figures of 11/168 against Victoria at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. With the defection of many leading Australian cricketers to World Series Cricket in 1977, it was thought that Attenborough would be chosen to lead the Australian Test team attack; however he was overlooked.

Attenborough experienced his best season in 1979/80, taking 44 wickets at 23.70, the third highest wicket taker that season behind Ashley Mallett and Dennis Lillee, but could not force his way into the Test team.

Attenborough retired from cricket in 1981, having played 57 first-class matches, taking 193 wickets at 31.96 with best bowling figures of 7/90 and scoring 738 runs at 10.39 with a highest score of 54. He also played nine List A matches, taking 10 wickets at 31.60 and scoring five runs at 1.25.

Following his retirement, Attenborough currently runs Ashross Agencies, which supplies the embroidery on the Australian team's uniforms [Ahmed, N. (2005) "Rush is on for tsunami appeal game", "The Age ", 7 January 2005.] .

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