Allan Robert Border AO is a former batsman who captained the Australian team for many years. The Australian international cricketer was also known as “A.B.” on the field.

Border is known to have played 156 Test matches in his career. He formerly held the world record for the greatest number of consecutive Test appearances (153) and stands second on the list of number of Tests as captain.

Border scored 11,174 Test runs (a world record until Brian Lara surpassed it in 2005), and his record for Test matches stood uncontested for 15 years. He hit 27 centuries in Test cricket and retired as the leading run-scorer in both Tests and ODIs.

Border was one of the 55 inaugural inductees of the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame; inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in 2000 and the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1990. He was even named Australian of the Year in 1989.

In his honour, the India-Australia Test series has been named the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. In Australian cricket, the Allan Border medal is the most prestigious individual prize.

He is best remembered for his pained concentration, a trickle of blood down a stubbled cheek and inscrutability against the world’s fastest and most malicious pacemen.

Cricket journalist Mike Coward documented the Border years for newspapers, books and T.V. and professed an undying affection for the flinty left-hander. “An uncomplicated man in possibly the most complicated period in Australian cricket history,” Coward says. “The most significant figure in Australian cricket since Bradman.”