Mark Paul Briers (born 21 April 1968) is a former English

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. He was born in

Loughborough Loughborough ( ) is a market town in the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England, the seat of Charnwood Borough Council and Loughborough University. At the 2011 census the town's built-up area had a population of 59,932 , the second larg ...

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...

. Briers represented

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council wa ...

in the 1990

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 ...

where he made his debut against

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

. Briers represented Bedfordshire in five Minor Counties Championship matches that season, the last of which came against

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

. In 1991 Briers joined

Durham Durham most commonly refers to: *Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham *County Durham, an English county *Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States *Durham, North Carolina, a city in No ...

and played in their final season as a

Minor County 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 ...

. With Durham's promotion to first-class status in 1992, thereby gaining entry to the 1992

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...

, Briers made his first-class debut against

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_ ...

. Briers made his

List-A List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numbe ...

debut in the same season against

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

in the Sunday League. Briers played seventeen first-class matches for Durham, scoring 462 runs at an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

of 17.17, including four half-centuries with a top score of 62 *. Briers final first-class match came against

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

in 1993, with his final one-day appearance for the club coming in the same season against

Middlesex County Cricket Club Middlesex County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Middlesex which has effectively been subsumed within the ceremonial ...

. After being released by Durham at the end of the 1993 County Championship, Briers proceeded in joining

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

, representing the county in twenty Minor Counties Championship matches between 1994 and 1996, the last of which came against

Devon County Cricket Club Devon County Cricket Club (Devon Cricket) is one of 20 minor county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Devon. The team is currently a member of the National Counties Champion ...

. Briers was awarded with his Cornwall cap in 1995. Briers left Cornwall at the end of the 1995 season and joined

Herefordshire County Cricket Club Herefordshire County Cricket Club is one of twenty minor county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Herefordshire. The team is currently a member of the Minor Counties Champion ...

for the 1996 season. Briers played in eleven Minor Counties matches for Herefordshire until 1998, with his final Minor Counties Championship appearance coming against

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

in August 1998. Briers also represented the club in a single List-A match against Middlesex in the 1998

NatWest Trophy The Friends Provident Trophy was a one-day cricket competition in the United Kingdom. It was one of the four tournaments in which the eighteen first-class cricket, first-class counties competed each season. They were joined by teams from Scott ...

, this was Briers final List-A appearance. Briers retired from representative cricket at the end of the 1998 English cricket season. Since 1994 Briers has been a master at

Cheltenham College ("Work Conquers All") , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent School Day and Boarding School , religion = Church of England , president = , head_label = Head , head = Nicola Huggett ...

and is the Rackets and Cricket Professional. He is widely acknowledged as coaching and developing the success of the current world rackets champion, old boy

James Stout James Stout (May 6, 1914 - July 12, 1976) was an American Hall of Fame thoroughbred horse racing jockey who won four Triple Crown races. Known as "Jimmy," he began working at a racetrack as a stable boy then in 1930 became a professional jock ...

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Briers, Mark 1968 births Living people Bedfordshire cricketers Cornwall cricketers Durham cricketers English cricketers Herefordshire cricketers Sportspeople from Loughborough Cricketers from Leicestershire