David Millns, born at Clipstone, Nottinghamshire, on 27 February 1965 played for Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Tasmania. He played Championship cricket for Nottinghamshire in 1988 to 1989 and again before his retirement in 2001.
In between these appearances for Nottinghamshire he moved to Leicestershire and was a member of the two Championship winning teams of 1994 and 1996. He was described as a ‘medium fast’ bowler and a capable lower-order batsman who batted left handed. When in the Leicestershire championship winning team of 1996 he took ten wickets and scored a century against Essex, one of very few players to achieve this milestone. He was also the leading wicket taker in the 1994 team and many cricket writers believed he should have gone to Australia for the 1994/5 Ashes tour. His best all round season was in 1996.
He also played for Tasmania (1994/1995) and Boland (Western Cape) South Africa in 1996/1997.
David had a batting average of 22.01, top score 121, with an aggregate of 3.082 in 171 First-Class games and a bowling average of 27.35 from 553 wickets; his best bowling was 9-37
In his final season having returned to Trent Bridge, he was only able to play one match, against Sussex, due to injury. There can be no greater accolade than the one delivered by the late Clive Rice as manager of Nottinghamshire: “We thank him for his contribution to Nottinghamshire cricket and wish him and his family every happiness in his retirement.” That family included his brother-in-law, and often team-mate, Andy Pick.
After his playing career finished, he turned his hand to umpiring and became very successful. He was selected in the ECB reserve list of umpires in 2007 and promoted to the First-Class umpires list in 2008. He stood as an umpire in the 2014-2016 ICC Women’s Championship and was selected as one of two foreign umpires in the 2019-2020 Bangladesh Premier League. David Millns was one of the umpires selected for the three-match T20 International series against Australia in the Covid-19 summer of 2020, having the unusual experience of being part of the bio-secure 'bubble' for players, coaches, media teams and officials during the re-arranged season.
September 2020
Nottinghamshire First-Class Number: 508