Matt Prior

Matthew James Prior (born 26 February 1982) is a South African-born English former cricketer, who played for England in Test cricket and for Sussex County Cricket Club in domestic cricket.

He was a wicket-keeper and his aggressive right-handed batting enabled him to open the innings in ODI matches, even though he made very limited appearances in shorter forms of the game.

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.

Matt has hit more than 1,000 first-class runs over the course of two seasons, in 2003 when Matt 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.

Matt has won the County Championship three times (2003, 2006 and 2007) although in 2007 Matt did not take part as much as before due to his England duties.

Prior made his One Day International debut in England's one-day series against Zimbabwe in 2004: he was chosen to open with Ian Bell and made 35 before he was dismissed by Ed Rainsford in a 74-run win.

Prior was next selected in the England team a year later for the ODI series against Pakistan.

In the opening match of the series he made 45 while opening the batting as England won the match by 42 runs.

In the next match he made 32 but England lost the game by seven wickets to leave the series level at 1–1.

Despite his good start to the series, Prior struggled in the next three games.

He made 2 in the third ODI before making 6 in the fourth match as England lost the game by 13 runs.

England won the final match of the series, although Prior could only manage 9 runs.

The series finished 3–2 to Pakistan.

Prior kept his place in the ODI squad for the series against India.

Prior batted well in the first game, making 22 as England lost by 39 runs.

He made 33 in the next game but England again lost, this time by a smaller margin.

He was run out while on 37 in the next game as England suffered yet another defeat.

In the fourth game of the series Prior made 14 as England lost again, this time by four wickets.

Prior did not play in the fifth game of the series, although returned for the sixth, batting lower down the order.

He made 3 as England won by five wickets.

In the final game of the series England lost again, this time by seven wickets, with Prior contributing just two towards England's score.

In 2005 Matt 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.

With an international Test debut score of 126, Prior became the first English wicket-keeper to hit a century in his debut match in early 2007.

His glovework, however, was criticised.

Matt Prior was chosen ahead of Paul Nixon for the keeper's spot for the first Test of the summer at Lord's in 2007 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.

Despite a successful tour of Sri Lanka with the bat, Prior's keeping was less successful, and he was dropped from the team for the 2008 tour of New Zealand.

He returned for the 2008 series against South Africa, and was retained into 2009, where he became the second-fastest England keeper to reach 1,000 Test runs, behind Les Ames.

He retired in June 2015 from all forms of professional cricket due to a recurring Achilles tendon injury.

Prior was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and moved to England with his family at the age of 11.

His mother is South African and his father is English.

Prior attended Brighton College during which time he began playing for Sussex County Cricket Club.

During his early years he played his colts cricket at St Matthias CC.

He is married to Emily, the daughter of former footballer Sammy Nelson, who played for Arsenal F.C. and Brighton & Hove Albion, and has two children.

Prior was the co-owner and chief executive of One Pro Cycling, which raced at the UCI Continental level in 2015, and were promoted to the second-tier Professional Continental level for 2016.

He became the first England wicket keeper to score a Test hundred on debut and the 17th English batsman to record the feat overall.

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 team was disbanded in 2018.

Prior received the NBC Denis Compton Award for young cricketers three times in his career.