Robin Simon Christopher Martin-Jenkins (born 28 October 1975) is an English former

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 for

Sussex County Cricket Club Sussex County Cricket Club is the oldest of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Sussex. Its limited overs team is called the Sussex Sharks. The c ...

and

British Universities Universities in the United Kingdom have generally been instituted by royal charter, papal bull, Act of Parliament, or an instrument of government under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 or the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. De ...

. He is tall. He is the son of cricket writer and journalist Christopher Martin-Jenkins, and as such has been nicknamed RMJ (a reference to his father

CMJ CMJ Holdings Corp. is a music events and online media company, originally founded in 1978, which ran a website, hosted an annual festival in New York City, and published two magazines, ''CMJ New Music Monthly'' and ''CMJ New Music Report''. Th ...

Early life

Martin-Jenkins was educated at Radley College and was in the same college house at the same time as cricketers Andrew Strauss and Ben Hutton. These three were among other successes in the first batch of 1997 at

Durham University , mottoeng = Her foundations are upon the holy hills (Psalm 87:1) , established = (university status) , type = Public , academic_staff = 1,830 (2020) , administrative_staff = 2,640 (2018/19) , chancellor = Sir Thomas Allen , vice_chan ...

's Centre of Excellence for Cricket, which was led by former test batsman

Graeme Fowler Graeme "Foxy" Fowler (born 20 April 1957) is an English former professional cricketer and cricket coach, who played for Lancashire County Cricket Club, England, and later for Durham. He appeared in 21 Test matches and 26 One Day Internationa ...

. Strauss said that he was helped by Hutton and Martin-Jenkins, as he "gained confidence from the fact that I was not the only person who was prepared to take the risk of jumping off the City-bound conveyer belt."

Cricket career

Martin-Jenkins played his entire first-class career for

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 ...

, except for one first-class match for

in 1996. He scored his maiden first-class century in 2001, and in 2002, he and

Mark Davis Mark Davis may refer to: Entertainers *Mark Davis (talk show host), American radio talk show host * Mark Jonathan Davis (born 1965), American actor/singer and creator of Richard Cheese *Mark Davis, American bassist and founding member for the band ...

scored a record eighth-wicket partnership for Sussex of 291, and Martin-Jenkins also hit his career best score of 205 *. As of 2015, this is still the highest eighth-wicket partnership for Sussex. He was a prominent member of both the

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

and

2007 County Championship The 2007 County Championship season, known as the LV County Championship for sponsorship reasons, was contested through two divisions: Division One and Division Two. Each team plays all the others in their division both home and away. The top two ...

winning teams; in 2011, Steve James writing in the ''

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 ...

'' described Martin-Jenkins and

James Kirtley Robert James Kirtley (born 10 January 1975) is a former English Test cricketer. He is a right arm fast medium bowler and a right hand batsman. After prep school at St. Andrews School, Eastbourne, he was educated at Clifton College. Kirtley is p ...

(who also retired in 2010) as "consistent and reliable performers who are role models and guardians of a team ethos that can endure." He described Martin-Jenkins as "the most solid of all-rounders".

Retirement and post-retirement

In July 2010, Martin-Jenkins announced his retirement at

Hove Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th cen ...

on 19 July 2010, in order to become a teacher. In his final season, he averaged 62.90 with the bat, and took 30 wickets at an average of under 20 runs per wicket. He taught at

Hurstpierpoint College (''Blessed are the pure in heart'') , established = , closed = , type = Public SchoolIndependent School , religious_affiliation = Church of England , president = , head_label = Headmaster , head = Dominic Mo ...

, and in 2014 he moved to

Harrow School (The Faithful Dispensation of the Gifts of God) , established = (Royal Charter) , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent schoolBoarding school , religion = Church of E ...

, where he teaches

Geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...

and is the house master of Moretons. In 2015,

St Bede's School Saint Bede's School is a coeducational secondary school and sixth form in the English town of Redhill, Surrey. In the most recent Ofsted inspection, the school was graded as "outstanding" in all areas. It now has over 1700 male and female pupi ...

opened a new stand in memory of Christopher Martin-Jenkins, and Robin Martin-Jenkins rang the bell to signal the start of play.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Martin-Jenkins, Robin 1975 births Living people English cricketers Sussex cricketers Sportspeople from Guildford NBC Denis Compton Award recipients People educated at Radley College British Universities cricketers Alumni of Durham University