John William Martin (16 February 1917 – 4 January 1987) was an English amateur

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er who played in one Test match for the

England cricket team The England cricket team represents England and Wales in international cricket. Since 1997, it has been governed by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), having been previously governed by Marylebone Cricket Club (the MCC) since 1903. Engla ...

in 1947. In a career which spanned 15-years either side of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Martin played in only 44

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

matches, mainly for

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ke ...

.Jack Martin
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2018-12-17.Carlaw D (2020) ''Kent County Cricketers A to Z. Part Two: 1919–1939'', pp. 124–126.
Available online
at the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. Retrieved 2020-07-01.) Martin was born in

Catford Catford is a district in south east London, England, and the administrative centre of the London Borough of Lewisham. It is southwest of Lewisham itself, mostly in the Rushey Green (ward), Rushey Green and Catford South Ward (electoral subdiv ...

in London.Jack Martin

CricInfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...

. Retrieved 2018-12-17. Most of his time was taken up with business work, and most of his cricket was played at club level for Catford Wanderers. When Martin was available for Kent his height and pace almost always made him valuable for a team mainly reliant on Fred Ridgway for pace bowling. Martin won his county cap in 1946 and in 1947, as a result of taking 4/55 for MCC against the touring South Africans and 9/98 for Kent against

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

, was selected for the First Test against South Africa at Trent Bridge.Martin, Jon William
Obituaries in 1987, ''

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

'', 1988. Retrieved 2018-12-17.First Test Match
England v South Africa, ''

'', 1948. Retrieved 2018-12-17. Although by no means genuinely fast, Martin had sufficient speed to offer contrast to an English attack dominated by spin and medium paced seam bowlers. During

Martin served as a battery commander in the

Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

.Club history

Royal Artillery Cricket Club Woolwich Cricket Club was an English cricket club based in the town of Woolwich, Kent. It was formed sometime in the first half of the 18th century, or earlier, and its earliest known record is in 1754 when its team played two matches against th ...

. Retrieved 2018-12-17.
Archived version available
Archived 2020-11-10.) Martin died at

Woolwich Woolwich () is a district in southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. The district's location on the River Thames led to its status as an important naval, military and industrial area; a role that was maintained throu ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

in January 1987 at the age of 69.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Martin, Jack 1917 births 1987 deaths England Test cricketers English cricketers Kent cricketers Cricketers from Greater London Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers British Army personnel of World War II Royal Artillery officers

See also

References

External links