Wayne Larkins (born 22 November 1953) is an English former cricketer, who represented Northamptonshire, Durham and Bedfordshire as an opening batsman throughout his career. He was selected to play for England as Graham Gooch's opening partner on tours of Australia and the West Indies. He was also a semi-professional footballer. Cricket County career Born in Roxton, Bedfordshire, Larkins played cricket for Northamptonshire from 1972 until 1991. He moved to first-class newcomers Durham in 1992, retiring from the first-class game in 1995. He scored 27,142 first-class runs in 482 matches, with 59 centuries and a highest score of 252. He also snared 42 wickets with his medium pace. He was a strong force in domestic one-day cricket, playing 485 matches and scoring 13,594 runs with 26 hundreds. He was part of the unlucky Northamptonshire side narrowly defeated in the final of both major domestic knock-out tournaments in 1987, the Benson & Hedges Cup and the NatWest Trophy. In the latter, Larkins top-scored but still finished on the losing side as Richard Hadlee engineered an unlikely successful run chase for Nottinghamshire. He did however finish on the winning side in the Benson & Hedges Cup final of 1980. International career Larkins first achieved England recognition during the 1979 Cricket World Cup. As England progressed through the tournament they decided to gamble on lengthening their batting line up by bringing in Larkins instead of a specialist bowler or allrounder such as Geoff Miller or Phil Edmonds, meaning that according to competition rules, Larkins, Graham Gooch and Geoff Boycott, all part-time bowlers, would probably have to bowl 12 overs between them a match. This gamble paid off in the semi-final where England beat New Zealand narrowly, but failed in the final, where England lost to the West Indies and Larkins had a miserable match. He made his test debut in Australia the following winter. By the end of 1981 he had played six Tests but not been given an extended run in the side and had had limited success. He decided the following winter to join the first rebel tour of South Africa alongside Gooch and Boycott. This meant that he was banned from international cricket for three years. The ban having been served, he was recalled into the England squad for the third Test against India in 1986, but had to pull out through injury, and was replaced by Mark Benson. In fact