Mark Robin Whitaker (born 20 September 1946) 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. Whitaker was a right-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, the ...

who bowled right-arm

fast-medium Fast bowling (also referred to as pace bowling) is one of two main approaches to bowling in the sport of cricket, the other being spin bowling. Practitioners of pace bowling are usually known as ''fast'' bowlers, ''quicks'', or ''pacemen''. T ...

. He was born in

Walton-on-Thames Walton-on-Thames, locally known as Walton, is a market town on the south bank of the Thames in the Elmbridge borough of Surrey, England. Walton forms part of the Greater London built-up area, within the KT postcode and is served by a wide ran ...

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

. Whitaker made his first-class debut for

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

against

in 1965. He made 11 further first-class appearances for the university, the last of which came against

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...

in 1967. A bowler, he took 20 wickets in his 12 first-class matches, which came 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 34.95. He took a single

five-wicket haul In cricket, a five-wicket haul (also known as a "five–for" or "fifer") occurs when a bowler takes five or more wickets in a single innings. This is regarded by critics as a notable achievement, equivalent to a century from a batsman. Takin ...

, taking 5/62 against

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

in 1965. In 1969, he made his only appearance for

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

in a

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 ...

match against

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

in the Gillette Cup. In this match, he bowled 7 wicket-less overs for the cost of 20 runs, while with the bat he ended Norfolk's innings unbeaten on 2. Playing for Cambridge University against

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

in 1965, he took three wickets in the first innings and two in the second –

Bevan Congdon Bevan Ernest Congdon (11 February 1938 – 10 February 2018) was a New Zealand cricket all-rounder who played 61 Test matches and 11 One Day Internationals from 1965 to 1978, which included a spell as captain. Captaincy He was captain of the ...

Graham Dowling Graham Thorne Dowling (born 4 March 1937) is a former New Zealand cricketer who played 39 Test matches and captained New Zealand in 19 of them. He led New Zealand to its first victory in a Test series, against Pakistan in November 1969. He wa ...

(twice) and John Reid (twice) – before becoming the first bowler in English cricket to be banned from bowling for running on the pitch.''

Wisden ''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 ...

'' 1966, pp. 280-81.

References

External links

Mark Whitaker
at

ESPNcricinfo 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 ...

Mark Whitaker
at CricketArchive {{DEFAULTSORT:Whitaker, Mark 1946 births Living people Sportspeople from Walton-on-Thames Alumni of the University of Cambridge English cricketers Cambridge University cricketers Norfolk cricketers Cricketers from Surrey