Mark John Greatbatch (born 11 December 1963) is a former New Zealand international

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 st ...

er. He scored more than 2,000 runs in his 41 Test matches for

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 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

. A left-handed batsman and very occasional right-arm medium pace bowler in

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 official ...

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 I ...

and Central Districts, Greatbatch scored 9,890 first class runs in total as well as being an occasional

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. Th ...

International career

Greatbatch highest test score of 146 not out off 485 balls was against Australia at

Perth Perth is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the Australian states and territories of Australia, state of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth most populous city in Aust ...

in November 1989. Greatbatch was at the crease for 11 hours (2 days) to save New Zealand from defeat, the game ending in a draw because of his efforts. He received a standing ovation at the end of the game. Greatbatch's defensive innings is still considered by many pundits to be one of the greatest cricket centuries ever, under the circumstances. For the

1992 Cricket World Cup The 1992 Cricket World Cup (officially the Benson & Hedges World Cup 1992) was the fifth staging of the Cricket World Cup, organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). It was held in Australia and New Zealand from 22 February to 25 M ...

Greatbatch was not selected to play in the first match, against Australia. However, he was selected to open against South Africa in place of John Wright, who had been injured, and proceeded to bat aggressively to take advantage of fielding restrictions early in the innings. The strategy worked, so was repeated again throughout the World Cup and Greatbatch became one of the first '

pinch hitter In baseball, a pinch hitter is a substitute batter. Batters can be substituted at any time while the ball is dead (not in active play); the manager may use any player who has not yet entered the game as a substitute. Unlike basketball, American ...

' players to open an innings in

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World Cup ...

s. Because of this success other cricketing nations, notably

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

, adopted the idea of opening with an aggressive batsman who normally plays in the middle order of test matches to score quick runs early and this tactic is now common in international cricket. Mark Greatbatch finished his career with 2,021 Test runs and 2,206 ODI runs.

After cricket

In September 2005 he became director of coaching at

Warwickshire County Cricket Club Warwickshire County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class cricket, first-class county cricket, county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the Historic counties of England, historic county of W ...

in England. After relegation from both the

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It b ...

and Pro40 League in 2007 he was replaced by

Ashley Giles Ashley Fraser Giles (born 19 March 1973) is a former English first-class cricketer, who played 54 Test matches and 62 One Day Internationals for England before being forced to retire due to a recurring hip injury. Giles played the entirety of ...

. In January, 2010, Greatbatch was appointed the coach of the New Zealand national cricket team.Greatbatch handed New Zealand team coaching role
retrieved 30 January 2010 In 2022,

Asterix ''Asterix'' or ''The Adventures of Asterix'' (french: Astérix or , "Asterix the Gaul") is a '' bande dessinée'' comic book series about a village of indomitable Gaulish warriors who adventure around the world and fight the Roman Repub ...

, a horse that Greatbatch partly owned, won the

New Zealand Derby The New Zealand Derby is a set-weights Thoroughbred horse race for three-year-olds, run over a distance of 2,400 metres (12 furlongs) at Ellerslie Racecourse in Auckland, New Zealand. It is held on the first Saturday in March, as the opening day o ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Greatbatch, Mark 1963 births Living people Auckland cricketers Central Districts cricketers New Zealand One Day International cricketers New Zealand Test cricketers Cricketers who made a century on Test debut Cricketers at the 1992 Cricket World Cup New Zealand cricketers Cricketers from Auckland New Zealand national cricket team selectors New Zealand cricket coaches Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Coaches of the New Zealand national cricket team M Parkinson's World XI cricketers North Island cricketers