He also played three first-class cricket matches for Otago between 1946 and 1948 as a right-handed lower-order batsman and wicketkeeper. In his first match against Wellington he took six catches. In a commentary career that extended from the early 1950s to the early 1990s, he broadcast about 500 rugby matches and numerous cricket matches, mostly from the Carisbrook ground in Dunedin.
Gallaway is now official patron of the Otago Cricket Association.
He worked as a lawyer in the Dunedin firm that is now Gallaway Cook Allan. His book Not a Cloud in the Sky: The Autobiography of Iain Gallaway came out in 1997.
Gallaway"s son Garth has followed in his father"s footsteps and is currently a cricket commentator on Radio Sport and a lawyer in Christchurch.
Gallaway was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to rugby and cricket in the 1978 Queen"s Birthday Honours.