Matthew Prior (cricketer)

Matt Prior
England
Personal information
Full name	Matthew James Prior
Born	26 February 1982 (1982-02-26) (age 26)
	Johannesburg, South Africa
Height	5 ft 11 in (1.80 m)
Role	Wicket-keeper
Batting style	Right-handed
International information
Test debut (cap 635)	17 May 2007: v West Indies
Last Test	18 December 2007: v Sri Lanka
ODI debut (cap 187)	5 December 2004: v Zimbabwe
Last ODI	8 September 2007:  v India
ODI shirt no.	13
Domestic team information
Years	Team
2001 – present	Sussex (squad no. 13)
2002	MCC
Career statistics
	Tests	ODI	FC	LA
Matches	10	22	115	147
Runs scored	562	469	6321	3261
Batting average	40.14	21.31	38.30	25.27
100s/50s	1/4	0/1	15/32	3/18
Top score	126*	52	201*	144
Balls bowled	0	0	0	0
Wickets	–	–	–	–
Bowling average	–	–	–	–
5 wickets in innings	–	–	–	–
10 wickets in match	–	n/a	–	n/a
Best bowling	–	–	–	–
Catches/stumpings	28/0	23/2	262/20	118/22
As of 10 December, 2007 Source: Cricinfo

Matthew James Prior (born 26 February, 1982) is an English ODI and Test cricketer who also plays domestic cricket for Sussex. He is a wicket-keeper, and also plays as a specialist opening batsman for One Day International matches. With an international test debut of 126, Prior became the first English wicket-keeper to hit a century on his first match in early 2007. His glovework, however, was criticised as well as his batting skills. Despite a successful tour of Sri Lanka with the bat,^[1] Prior's keeping was less successful, and he was dropped from the team for the 2008 tour of New Zealand.^[2]

Early life

Prior was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and moved to England with his family aged 11.^[3] He attended the public school Brighton College in Brighton, Sussex, and then studied at the County Cricket Ground, Hove.^[4]

Domestic career

Prior received the NBC Denis Compton Award for young cricketers three times in his career. He has hit more than 1,000 first class runs in two seasons, in 2003 when he won the County Championship with Sussex, and 2004, when his 1,158 runs, including 201 not out against Loughborough UCCE, was enough to be top-scorer for Sussex that season. In 2005 he made fewer runs, with 874, but also became Sussex's first choice wicket-keeper again after having shared duties with Tim Ambrose in the two previous seasons.

ODI career

Prior made his One Day International debut in England's One day series of Zimbabwe in 2004, he was chosen to open with Ian Bell and made 35 before he was dismissed by Edward Rainsford in a 74-run win. Prior has been on three tours with the England A team, in 2003/4, 2004/5 and 2006/07. He was also selected as back-up wicket-keeper to Geraint Jones on England's tour of Pakistan in 2005-06. After sitting out all three Tests, he opened the innings in the first ODI – although Geraint Jones still kept wicket. He made 45 . Having played in all five ODI's of the series, he was also named in the squad for the tour to India that followed and played in six ODI's, opening the batting in four of them.

Test career

Matt Prior was chosen ahead of Paul Nixon for keeper's spot for the first Test of the summer at Lord's against the West Indies. He scored a hundred on his debut, taking just 105 deliveries and hitting 16 boundaries after coming in at number 7, and finishing on 126 not out. He became the first England wicket keeper to score a Test hundred on debut^[5] and the 17th English batsman to record the feat overall. (Note that although both Paul Gibb and Billy Griffith scored debut centuries, and although both were wicket-keepers, neither was actually keeping wicket in their debut Test.) The last wicketkeeper to make a half century on debut was Jack Russell, who scored 94 against Sri Lanka at Lords in 1988. Prior was one of four centurions in the innings along with Alastair Cook, Paul Collingwood and Ian Bell. It was the first time since 1938 that four England players scored hundreds in the same innings of a Test match.^[5] During the 2007 Indian tour of England, Prior was heavily criticised by many former players including Ian Chappell for his behaviour on pitch. Prior was told by Chappell to focus more on keeping than chatting. An incident involving jelly beans tossed on the wicket by the England fielders angered batsman Zaheer Khan and got the England players reprimanded by many. His footwork was considered poor throughout the series with the gloves, conceding more byes than his predecessor in a third of the time. He also dropped VVS Laxman, Sachin Tendulkar and several others in critical moments, they all went on to make big scores. Ryan Sidebottom suffered heavily from Prior's keeping mistakes with five drops off his bowling. Poor batting followed for the rest of the summer without scoring a half century. In the twenty twenty world cup, he broke his thumb and England didn't bring another wicket keeper to the tournament so they gave Vikram Solanki the gloves. After that, he was selected to play in Sri Lanka in the test series. His poor form followed with a duck but then scored 63 in the second innings. Prior put some critics to rest with this and with his efforts in the second match of the tour at Colombo, when he scored 79, which was the backbone of England's first innings score, and ended the series with the third highest batting average for England, 41.25.^[1] However, Prior's good batting form was unfortunately overshadowed by his poor wicket-keeping. It was the poor form with the gloves that led to him being dropped for the 2008 tour of New Zealand. When the squad was announced on January 4 2008, Chairman of selectors David Graveney stated - "Prior performed well with the bat in Sri Lanka and it has been a difficult decision to leave him out of this tour, but the selectors feel that he needs to further improve his wicket-keeping in order to realise his full potential in international cricket. But I'm sure Matt will be back, there's no doubt about that."^[2]

References

External links

• Player Profile: Matthew Prior from Cricinfo
• Player Profile: Matthew Prior from CricketArchive

See also

• International cricketers of South African origin