Christopher Stewart Martin (born 10 December 1974) is a former

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er. A right-arm fast-medium bowler, Martin played provincial cricket for

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, having formerly played for the

Canterbury Wizards Canterbury is a first-class cricket team based in Canterbury, New Zealand. It is one of six teams that compete in senior New Zealand Cricket competitions and has been the second most successful domestic team in New Zealand history. They compete ...

. He also signed for the English

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side,

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 ...

, for their 2008 domestic campaign and played one first-class match for

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in 2010. In 1999 he played a season of club cricket in Scotland for Heriots FP Cricket Club. He retired from all cricket in late 2013.

International career

Martin is one of seven

Test cricketers to have taken 200 wickets. In 2011 he was recognised as New Zealand's premier cricketer, when he was awarded the inaugural Sir Richard Hadlee Medal, at the

cricket awards ceremony. Although predominantly a Test bowler, Martin moved back into contention for One Day Internationals after

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rule changes permitted substitutions during games. Although the rule has since been revoked, Martin has remained on the fringes of the ODI squad and was called up to the New Zealand World Cup 2007 squad, as a replacement for the injured

Daryl Tuffey Daryl Raymond Tuffey (born 11 June 1978) is a former New Zealand cricketer who represented New Zealand in all formats internationally. Tuffey was born in Milton, Otago, and played domestic first-class cricket for Northern Districts Knights. Tu ...

Batting action

Martin was well known for being an extremely poor batsman, even by the low standards generally expected of tail-end batsman, and his batting gained him more publicity than his bowling. Martin has the rather dubious distinction of belonging to a select group of cricketers whose number of wickets taken exceeds runs scored;

Bhagwat Chandrasekhar Bhagwat Subramanya Chandrasekhar (informally Chandra; born 17 May 1945) is an Indian former cricketer who played as a leg spinner. Considered among the top echelon of leg spinners, Chandrasekhar along with E.A.S. Prasanna, Bishen Singh Bedi an ...

is the only other cricketer to meet this distinction (assuming a qualification of 30 Tests played), and only Holcombe “Hopper” Read – who played when pitches were uncovered – has played Test cricket and finished with a lower first-class batting average than Martin. Martin holds the record for the most

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s recorded in Test match history (7). He is also the only cricketer to be dismissed for a

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(run out on 0 without facing a ball) twice in Test cricket – against England in 2004 and South Africa in 2013. On 9 January 2011, Martin notched up the milestone of 100 career Test match runs in the 1st Test against Pakistan at Seddon Park. He took his 500th wicket in first-class cricket, with the dismissal of Tanvir Ahmed on the third day of the

first Test ''First Test'', is a fantasy novel by Tamora Pierce, the first book in the series ''Protector of the Small The ''Protector of the Small'' quartet is a series of books written by Tamora Pierce that tells the story of Keladry of Mindelan, a ...

against Pakistan in January 2011.

Retirement

On 3 July 2013 Martin announced his retirement from all forms of cricket. He bowed out as the third highest Test wicket-taker in New Zealand’s history.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Martin, Chris 1974 births Living people Auckland cricketers Canterbury cricketers Warwickshire cricketers New Zealand One Day International cricketers New Zealand Test cricketers New Zealand Twenty20 International cricketers New Zealand cricketers Essex cricketers South Island cricketers