Martin John Saggers (born 23 May 1972) is an English county cricket umpire and a retired English

cricketer Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

. He played international cricket for the

England cricket team The England men's cricket team represents cricket in England, England and cricket in Wales, Wales in international cricket. Since 1997, it has been governed by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), having been previously governed by Maryleb ...

, including appearing in three Test matches and spent the majority of his

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 of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

career at

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ken ...

. Saggers was born in

King's Lynn King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and colloquially as Lynn, is a port and market town in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk in the county of Norfolk, England. It is north-east of Peterborough, north-north-east of Cambridg ...

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

. Saggers had little success in his three seasons with Durham between 1996 and 1998, but then joined Kent and from 2000 to 2003 took more than 50 first-class wickets each year, his best being 83 in 2002. He also played for

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

on loan in 2007. He played for his native

in minor county matches in 1995–6. Saggers made his Test match debut in 2003/04, as a replacement for the injured

Andrew Flintoff Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff (born 6 December 1977), is an English television and radio presenter and former international cricketer. Flintoff played all forms of the game and was one of the sport's leading all-rounders, a fast bowler, middle-ord ...

Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; , ), List of renamed places in Bangladesh, formerly known as Dacca, is the capital city, capital and list of cities and towns in Bangladesh, largest city of Bangladesh. It is one of the list of largest cities, largest and list o ...

, and also played in two of the three Tests against

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 ...

the following summer. At

Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

he took the wicket of Mark Richardson with his first ball, but some wayward bowling and poor performances with the bat led to him being dropped for the games 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 ...

. With the bat, he scored 1, 0 and 0 in three innings, finishing his Test career with a

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

of 0.33. Saggers suffered a knee injury in August 2009, and a month later announced his retirement from professional cricket. Graham Johnson, Kent's chairman of cricket, paid tribute to Saggers, saying "We owe Martin a great deal, especially during a period when he was our seam attack. Quite rightly, on the basis of this success, he received recognition at International level. Always enthusiastic and positive during his career, he will carry these qualities into his plans for what follows after cricket". In 2012 Saggers became a full-time cricket umpire, standing in

County Championship The County Championship, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Rothesay County Championship, is the only domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales. Established in 1890, it is organised by the England and Wales Cri ...

matches in England.Saggers promoted to full umpires list

CricInfo ESPNcricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a Sports journalism, sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including Liveblogging, liveblogs and sco ...

, 2011-11-11. Retrieved 2016-04-08.Martin Saggers - from Test cricketer to first-class umpire
BBC Sport, 2012-02-29. Retrieved 2016-04-08. In 2020, he was appointed to the ICC International Umpires' Panel. He was one of the on-field umpires for the 2022 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup in the West Indies.

References

External links

* 1972 births Living people Cricketers from King's Lynn Durham cricketers England Test cricketers English cricket umpires English cricketers English One Day International cricket umpires English Twenty20 International cricket umpires Essex cricketers Kent cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers Minor Counties cricketers Norfolk cricketers {{England-cricket-bio-stub

See also

References

External links