Leslie Fletcher Townsend (8 June 1903 – 17 February 1993) was an English cricketer who played for England between 1929 and 1934, for Derbyshire between 1922 and 1939, and also for Auckland in 1934–35 and 1935–36.
Townsend was also an enterprising middle order batsman, who set a longstanding record for most centuries for Derbyshire in a season in 1933.
He did not play cricket in his youth and was only attracted to the game by watching Nottinghamshire's star batsman George Gunn.
In the 1927 season, with Derbyshire rising to fifth in the Championship, Townsend's medium pace off-break bowling was close to the top of the averages.
In the 1933 season, Townsend's batting was so successful that he scored over 2,000 runs, including innings of 233 against Leicestershire at Loughborough, 172 not out against Warwickshire at Derby, and 151 against Essex at Leyton.
However, his limitations on the hard pitches in July and August meant he only reached the rare "double" of 2000 runs and 100 wickets in the last match.
Most observers during his later years as a coach there saw Townsend as the reason why the city produced an unusual proportion of New Zealand's Test cricketers in the latter part of the twentieth century.