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Martyn Moxon was expected to be the next traditional Yorkshire opening
batsman, following in the line of Hutton and Boycott, but after a
promising start his England career foundered in the selectorial
confusion of the late 1980s. He first played for Yorkshire (the photo
above shows him in action for his county) in 1981, and honed his
technique with two seasons in South Africa playing for Griqualand West.
He was chosen for the England team that went to Australia in 1984-85 to
play in the World Championship of Cricket, a mini World Cup held as part
of Victoria's 150th anniversary celebrations. Moxon was picked for the
Lord's Test against the West Indies in 1984, but was injured before the
game, and did not make his Test debut until the Lord's Test against
India in 1986, when he made 74.
He did not tour Australia that winter,
and was not recalled until the last Test of the 1987 series against
Pakistan. He got a berth on the tour which took in the BiCentennial Test
in Australia, where he scored 40, and went on to New Zealand. There he
seemed to have established a Test place. In Auckland he batted 345
minutes for 99 before he was caught at slip off Chatfield. He was 81 not
out in Wellington when New Zealand's long white cloud turned into a
week of storms. As England's selectors discarded players like empty
sweet wrappers through 1988 and 1989 he played just two Tests against
the West Indies and one against Australia. He made centuries for his
county in the first two matches he played in Yorkshire. He was captain
of England A in the West Indies in 1992, but injury kept him out of all
the big games. (Bob Harragan)
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