Mark Alan Butcher (born 23 August 1972) is an English cricket commentator and former English
Test cricket
Test cricket is a Forms of cricket, format of the sport of cricket, considered the game’s most prestigious and traditional form. Often referred to as the "ultimate test" of a cricketer's skill, endurance, and temperament, it is a format of i ...
er, who played
county cricket
Inter-county cricket matches have been played since the early 18th century, involving teams that are representative of the historic counties of England and Wales.
Two county championship competitions have existed since the late 19th century at ...
for
Surrey
Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...
from 1992 until his retirement in 2009. He was a left-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 ...
, and occasional right-arm medium-pace bowler who was also capable of bowling off spin.
Biography
He went to
Cumnor
Cumnor is a village and civil parish 3½ miles (5.6 km) west of the centre of Oxford, England. The village is about 2 miles (3.2 km) south-west of Botley and its centre is west of the A420 road to Swindon. The parish includes Cumno ...
House School in Purley from the age of five to thirteen before moving to Trinity School in Croydon. He first played for his school's U-11 side at the age of seven. He was also picked up by the Surrey U-11 side and also was selected in Surrey's U-19 team.
He married
Alec Stewart
Alec James Stewart (born 8 April 1963) is an English former cricketer, and former captain of the England cricket team, who played Test cricket and One Day Internationals as a right-handed wicket-keeper-batsman. He is the fifth-most- capped En ...
's sister Judy but the marriage did not last.
He dealt with various personal issues especially in 2000 following the break up of his marriage and his axing from the England side at the end of 2000. He also had issues with alcohol and depression.
Cricket career
Butcher played all his
county cricket
Inter-county cricket matches have been played since the early 18th century, involving teams that are representative of the historic counties of England and Wales.
Two county championship competitions have existed since the late 19th century at ...
for Surrey, for whom he made his
first-class debut in 1992.
[Batting by season](_blank)
Cricketarchive.com. Retrieved on 22 May 2018. He made his
Test match debut in the first Test of the 1997
Ashes series at
Edgbaston
Edgbaston () is a suburb of Birmingham, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It lies immediately south-west of Birmingham city centre, and was historically in Warwickshire. The Ward (electoral subdivision), wards of Edgbaston and Nort ...
.
[Test matches](_blank)
Cricketarchive.com. Retrieved on 22 May 2018. He opened the batting on his debut test but did not produce the kind of scores that he would have liked but England managed to win that match by nine wickets albeit off a double century from
Nasser Hussain
Nasser Hussain (born 28 March 1968) is an English cricket commentator and former player who captained the England cricket team between 1999 and 2003, with his overall international career extending from 1990 to 2004. A pugnacious right-hande ...
. His last Test match was in December 2004,
when he had played 71 Tests, making eight
centuries and averaging over 34.
[Mark Butcher](_blank)
ESPNcricinfo. Retrieved on 22 May 2018.
Butcher
captained England once, in a draw with
New Zealand
New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
in 1999 when
Nasser Hussain
Nasser Hussain (born 28 March 1968) is an English cricket commentator and former player who captained the England cricket team between 1999 and 2003, with his overall international career extending from 1990 to 2004. A pugnacious right-hande ...
was injured.
He never appeared in a
One Day International
One Day International (ODI) is a format of cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of fifty overs, with the game lasting up to 7 hours. The World Cup, generally held every four yea ...
(ODI). Of players who have started in international cricket since the first ODI in 1970–71, Butcher is the "runaway leader" in terms of playing the most Test matches without appearing in an ODI.
Butcher played in 71 Tests, but as of April 2004 no other player in the ODI era had played in more than 30 Tests without playing in an ODI.
Butcher enjoyed a reasonably good start to his Test career, hitting two half-centuries in five matches against a powerful Australian side.
He then struggled (along with the rest of the England side) against the
West Indies
The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...
that winter, averaging just 15.
However, in the next series he did very well, scoring two fifties and a century against South Africa.
Though he followed that with another impressive hundred against Australia in the first
Ashes Test that winter, he then failed for the rest of that series. A poor run of form followed, as he failed to score a half-century in twelve consecutive matches.
Despite being appointed stand-in captain for one Test against New Zealand, he was dropped from the side in the winter of 2000.
He subsequently lost his place in the Test side to
Marcus Trescothick
Marcus Edward Trescothick (born 25 December 1975) is an English former cricketer who played first-class cricket for Somerset County Cricket Club, and represented England cricket team, England in 76 Test cricket, Test matches and 123 One Day In ...
.
Butcher's domestic form then suffered a dramatic decline, and he found himself languishing in the Surrey second eleven at the start of the 2001 English domestic season.
However, hard work and coaching from his father,
Alan
Alan may refer to:
People
*Alan (surname), an English and Kurdish surname
* Alan (given name), an English given name
** List of people with given name Alan
''Following are people commonly referred to solely by "Alan" or by a homonymous name.''
* ...
, himself a former Surrey and England player, sorted out his form.
He was drafted into the Test side to play the Australians and strong showings throughout that series culminated in a superb innings of 173 not out at
Headingley
Headingley is a suburb of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, approximately two miles out of the city centre, to the north west along the A660 road. Headingley is the location of the Beckett Park campus of Leeds Beckett University and Headingley ...
, as England successfully chased 315 to win (although the series was by then lost).
After that series, Butcher continued to prosper until a run of injuries saw him lose his place. Consistent performances had made him an essential component of the England batting line-up, to be relied upon in a crisis. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the series in the West Indies in 2003–04, when he always batted well irrespective of the sometimes poor showing by various partners at the other end, and he passed fifty in four out of seven innings.
He was the top runscorer for England in England's emphatic series win in Caribbean by smacking 296 runs in four matches. A series of serious injuries kept Butcher out of the game for most of 2005,
and his last Test was the first Test in South Africa in December 2004.
The series of injury setbacks also subsequently put a dramatic end to his run of 42 successive test match appearances for England. During his illustrious yet volatile test career, he was regarded as one of the worst overnight resumers in test cricket as he often gets out quickly without adding much runs to his overnight score as he averages just 26.93 in 31 innings when it comes to starting the proceedings from overnight scores.
Thereafter, he struggled to recover properly from numerous injury set-backs, and although he retained the official captaincy of Surrey his appearances for the team became sporadic. In August 2009, Butcher announced his retirement from all first-class cricket after a troubling knee injury.
Since his retirement as a player, he has commentated on cricket for
Sky Sports
Sky Sports is a group of British broadcasting of sports events, subscription sports channels operated by the satellite television, satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television ...
and has appeared as an expert summariser on
Test Match Special
''Test Match Special'' (also known as ''TMS'') is a British sports radio programme, originally, as its name implies, dealing exclusively with Test cricket matches, but currently covering any professional cricket. The programme is available on BB ...
, for
Star Sports and
ESPN Cricinfo
ESPNcricinfo (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 ...
. He appeared in Sky Sports documentary titled ''You Guys Are History'' where he explores and examines why there is a massive decline in black cricketers in England since the turn of the century.
He was awarded Honorary Life Membership of
Marylebone Cricket Club
The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's, Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London, England. The club was the governing body of cricket from 1788 to 1989 and retain ...
(MCC) in January 2010.
Test centuries
Music career
Butcher is also a guitar player and singer – he sang a ballad at
Surrey
Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...
and England teammate
Ben Hollioake's funeral. Previously, in 2001, he appeared on the '
Jamie Theakston
James Paul Theakston (born 21 December 1970) is an English television presenter, producer, narrator and actor. He has hosted television programmes for the BBC, ITV (TV network), ITV, Channel 4 and 5 (British TV channel), Channel 5. He co-present ...
Cricket Show' on
BBC Radio 5 Live
BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It broadcasts mainly news, sport, Talk show, discussion, interviews and phone-ins, and is on air 24 hours a day. It is the principal BBC radio station Broadca ...
, where he played a live
acoustic version of "(Get A) Grip (On Yourself)" by
The Stranglers
The Stranglers are an English rock music, rock band formed in 1974. Scoring 23 UK top 40 singles and 20 UK top 40 albums to date in a career spanning five decades, the Stranglers are one of the longest-surviving bands to have originated in the ...
with the former Stranglers'
frontman
The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of the ...
Hugh Cornwell
Hugh Alan Cornwell (born 28 August 1949) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and writer, best known for being the lead vocalist and lead guitarist for the punk rock and new wave band the Stranglers
The Stranglers are an English ro ...
. In early 2008, Butcher started recording his debut album, ''Songs from the Sun House''. Released in 2010, it includes "You're Never Gone", the song he wrote in tribute to Hollioake.
[Butcher in the recording studio](_blank)
''Surrey Cricket'' (18 January 2008).
Mark Butcher partnered
Sarah Brightman
Sarah Brightman (born 14 August 1960) is an English classical crossover soprano singer and actress.
Brightman began her career as a member of the dance troupe Hot Gossip and released several disco singles as a solo performer. In 1981, she made ...
on the second series of ''
Just the Two of Us'' aired on
BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...
in January 2007; they came third overall.
Personal life
He was born to a
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...
n mother and an English father.
Butcher attended Cumnor House Prep School,
Trinity School and
Archbishop Tenison's School in Croydon, and supports the local
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
team,
Crystal Palace.
At one time during his playing career, Butcher was married to former England and Surrey teammate
Alec Stewart
Alec James Stewart (born 8 April 1963) is an English former cricketer, and former captain of the England cricket team, who played Test cricket and One Day Internationals as a right-handed wicket-keeper-batsman. He is the fifth-most- capped En ...
's sister Judy.
Surrey's former coach and player,
Alan Butcher, is his father, and his brother,
Gary, played for
Glamorgan
Glamorgan (), or sometimes Glamorganshire ( or ), was Historic counties of Wales, one of the thirteen counties of Wales that existed from 1536 until their abolishment in 1974. It is located in the South Wales, south of Wales. Originally an ea ...
and Surrey.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Butcher, Mark
1972 births
Living people
Cricketers from the London Borough of Croydon
People from Croydon
People educated at Archbishop Tenison's Church of England High School, Croydon
People educated at Trinity School of John Whitgift
English cricketers
Surrey cricketers
Surrey cricket captains
England Test cricketers
England Test cricket captains
English cricket commentators
English people of Jamaican descent
Sportspeople of Jamaican descent
Test and County Cricket Board XI cricketers
Black British sportsmen