John Donald Martin (born 23 December 1941) is an English retired

cricketer 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 ...

who played first-class

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 ...

for

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

. He also played

Minor Counties The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

cricket for

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...

and

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

. He was born in

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. Martin was a tail-end right-handed batsman and a right-arm fast-medium bowler. Educated at Magdalen College School in Oxford, he played Minor Counties cricket for Oxfordshire from 1959, and he took four Somerset wickets in the 1961

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship (previously the Minor Counties Cricket Championship) is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national cou ...

challenge match, which was won by Somerset's second eleven. The following season, 1962, he joined Somerset, playing mostly second eleven cricket for the next four summers after the end of the university term, and appearing only twice in the county's first team. The bulk of Martin's first-class cricket was played for Oxford University. He was a

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undergraduate at

St Edmund Hall St Edmund Hall (sometimes known as The Hall or informally as Teddy Hall) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. The college claims to be "the oldest surviving academic society to house and educate undergraduates in any university ...

in 1962 and opened the bowling in the first match of the season against

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

: Martin Young and Ron Nicholls put on 395 for the first wicket for Gloucestershire, still the highest first-class partnership for any wicket for the county, though Martin did have Young caught behind the wicket. Playing in just six matches because of examinations, Martin took only nine first-class wickets in what

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 ...

declared was a "depressing" season. Four of those came in the

University match The University Match in a cricketing context is generally understood to refer to the annual fixture between Oxford University Cricket Club and Cambridge University Cricket Club. From 2001, as part of the reorganisation of first-class cricket, ...

, where he won his

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. He was a lot more successful in 1963, taking 26 first-class wickets including his first five-wicket haul, a return of six for 70 in the match against

Marylebone Cricket Club Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influence ...

(MCC) when his victims included four

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batsmen. In the University match, however, he retired with

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after bowling only five overs. In 1964, he missed the match with Cambridge entirely through injury, though earlier in the season, he had produced the best bowling figures of his first-class career by taking seven

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

wickets for just 26 runs in a rain-ruined match. In December 1964, Martin was a member of an MCC team that toured South America for a month: the team consisted of mainly former public school players and there were matches in Chile, Brazil and Argentina. In the 1965 season, Martin was captain of the Oxford University side and had his best-ever bowling season, taking 37 wickets for the university side at an average of 19.24. After almost leading his side to victory in the 1965 University match, though, Martin played only one further first-class match, his second for Somerset after one in the 1964 season. He continued to play second eleven cricket for Somerset until the end of the 1966 season and made one fleeting appearance six years later for Berkshire in the Minor Counties. A negligible batsman, he reached double figures only five times in 40 matches (twice in one match) and his highest score was just 14.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Martin, John 1941 births Living people English cricketers Oxford University cricketers Somerset cricketers Oxfordshire cricketers Berkshire cricketers Cricketers from Oxford People educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford Alumni of St Edmund Hall, Oxford