Malachy Bernard "Mal" Loye (born 27 September 1972), is an English former cricketer who played

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 officia ...

for

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

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 Lancash ...

, and England A. Loye is a right-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the cricket ball, ball with a cricket bat, bat to score runs (cricket), runs and prevent the dismissal (cricket), loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since Septembe ...

, particularly well known for his slog sweep shot against fast bowlers. Deep into a long career, he also finally made his One Day International debut against Australia on 19 January 2007 aged 34 years 113 days. Apocryphally, he starred in the inaugural 2007 T20 Cricket World Cup.

Early life

Loye was educated at Moulton Comprehensive School and Durham University, where he played for the university side. He was part of the Durham University team that won the 1993 Universities Athletic Union final against

Manchester University , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

Career

Northamptonshire

After making his debut in 1991, Loye received the Northamptonshire

cap A cap is a flat headgear, usually with a visor. Caps have crowns that fit very close to the head. They made their first appearance as early as 3200 BC. Caps typically have a visor, or no brim at all. They are popular in casual and informal se ...

in 1994, and passed 1,000 runs in a season for the first time in 1996. In 1998 he made almost 1,200 first-class runs including the county's individual scoring record of 322

not out In cricket, a batter is not out if they come out to bat in an innings and have not been dismissed by the end of an innings. The batter is also ''not out'' while their innings is still in progress. Occurrence At least one batter is not out at t ...

against Glamorgan. In the same game he shared a stand of 401 with David Ripley which beat the record of the highest fifth-wicket stand in England, a record which in turn lasted until a stand by

Colin Ackermann Colin Niel Ackermann (born 4 April 1991) is a Dutch-South African cricketer who plays for Leicestershire County Cricket Club in England and the Netherlands national cricket team. He made his international debut for the Netherlands in October 2019 ...

and

Wiaan Mulder Pieter Willem Adriaan Mulder (born 19 February 1998), known as Wiaan Mulder, is a South African first-class cricketer. He made his One Day International (ODI) debut for South Africa in October 2017 and his Test debut in March 2019. In domestic ...

in July 2022. Loye ended up with four hundreds in 1998, a new season best, and was named PCA Player of the Year to follow on from his 1993 award of PCA Young Player of the Year. After a couple of lean years where he made less than 600 runs, Loye has averaged above 48 in every season save 2002, and scored more than 900 runs a season. Now he has over 10,000 first-class runs to his name and has represented both England U19 and

England 'A' England A is England's men's second national rugby union team. The team has previously been known by a number of names, such as England B, Emerging England and, most recently, England Saxons. England A play a key role in the development of emer ...

, first touring South Africa with England 'A' in 1993-4, and returning in 1998-9.

Lancashire

Loye transferred to Lancashire in 2003. He was an ever-present during Lancashire's march to the County Championship Division Two title in 2005 and was the county's leading run-scorer with 1,198, including a knock of 200 against Durham. He almost became the first Lancashire batsman ever to score consecutive double centuries but was dismissed for 194 in the next match against Essex. Loye also made a century in the

Twenty20 Cup The T20 Blast, currently named the Vitality Blast for sponsorship reasons, is a professional Twenty20 cricket competition for English and Welsh first-class counties. The competition was established by the England and Wales Cricket Board (E ...

for the first time when he hammered exactly 100 against Durham, including five sixes and 10 fours. Loye became a mainstay in the Lancashire top-order from there on and his good form provided him with a call-up to England's One Day International 30-man preliminary squad for the ICC Champions Trophy in India. He was awarded with a benefit season for 2008.

Return to Northamptonshire

After 7 years away from

, Loye returned to

Wantage Road The County Ground is a cricket venue on Wantage Road in the Abington area of Northampton, England. It is home to Northamptonshire County Cricket Club, and was used by Northampton Town F.C. from 1897 to 1994. Cricket Northamptonshire playe ...

, signing a 2-year contract on 29 September 2009. He was released by the county following the 2011 season. Following his release he joined Buckinghamshire for the 2012 season, making his debut for the county in the

MCCA Knockout Trophy The National Counties Cricket Association Knockout Cup was started in 1983 as a knockout one-day competition for the National Counties in English cricket. At first it was known as the ''English Industrial Estates Cup'', before being called the ...

against

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...

International career

On 4 October 2006 he was called up to the

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

squad for the

Hong Kong Sixes The Hong Kong Cricket Sixes is a Six-a-side international cricket tournament held at the Kowloon Cricket Club comprising between eight and twelve teams. Organised by Cricket Hong Kong, it is sanctioned by the International Cricket Council. The ...

event in November. Loye acted as a

wicket keeper The wicket-keeper in the sport of cricket is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket or stumps being watchful of the batsman and ready to take a catch, stump the batsman out and run out a batsman when occasion arises. T ...

for the England team led by

Dominic Cork Dominic is a name common among Roman Catholics and other Latin-Romans as a male given name. Originally from the late Roman-Italic name "Dominicus", its translation means "Lordly", "Belonging to God" or "of the Master". Variations include: Domini ...

during the tournament. In January 2007 Loye was playing for

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about ...

, when he was called up to the England squad as cover for the injured

Michael Vaughan Michael Paul Vaughan (born 29 October 1974) is an English cricket commentator and former cricketer who played all forms of the game. He served as England captain for the test team from 2003 to 2008, the one-day international team from 200 ...

, and made his One Day International debut on 19 January 2007 when he was England's top scorer with 36 runs off 36 balls. Cricket commentator Simon Mann remarked after the game that ''"Loye's front foot sweep for six off

Brett Lee Brett Lee (born 8 November 1976) is an Australian former international cricketer, who played all three formats of the game. During his international career, Lee was recognised as one of the fastest bowlers in the world. In each of his first two ...

was the stroke of the series so far"''. Loye was left out of England's squad for the

2007 Cricket World Cup The 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup was the ninth Cricket World Cup, a One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament that took place in the West Indies from 13 March to 28 April 2007. There were a total of 51 matches played, three fewer than at the ...

in favour of

Ravi Bopara Ravinder Singh Bopara (born 4 May 1985) is an English cricketer who plays for Sussex County Cricket Club in one day cricket. Originally a top-order batsman, his developing medium pace bowling has made him a batting all rounder in the one day ...

. Chairman of selectors

David Graveney David Anthony Graveney (born 2 January 1953) is a leading figure in English cricket and former chairman of the England Test selectors, a post he held from 1997 until 2008. Graveney attended Millfield School in Somerset. He led a successful fir ...

said that Loye could be considered unlucky and had not done anything wrong, but that his inclusion would have made the squad "top-heavy". He was also left out of England's Twenty20 squad for a tournament in South Africa, despite having had healthy stats and success in the domestic form of the game over the previous few seasons and having averaged 57 in the 2007 tournament. Loye fumes at Graveney's 'lack of respect'
Cricinfo

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Loye, Mal 1972 births Living people Cricketers from Northampton English cricketers England One Day International cricketers Northamptonshire cricketers Lancashire cricketers Auckland cricketers Buckinghamshire cricketers English cricket coaches Alumni of Durham University