Matthew Peter Maynard was born 21 March 1966 in Oldham Lancashire and brought up on the island of Anglesey in North Wales where he first joined Glamorgan.
Maynard enjoyed a glittering career with Glamorgan scoring 35,466 runs in 754 1st XI appearances across all formats with a club record 69 centuries. He was involved in four trophy winning sides in the 1990s and early 2000s and memorably captained the club to the County Championship in 1997 and in so doing became only the third Glamorgan captain behind Wilf Wooller and Tony Lewis to win the County Championship.
These displays of skill did not go unnoticed by the England selectors and he earned a call-up against the West Indies at the Oval in 1988. He was picked again in 1989 but then ran foul of the cricketing authorities by agreeing to go with Mike Gatting on the controversial rebel tour of South Africa, when that country had been banned from international sport because of its policy of apartheid. His conduct led to a three-year Test ban, but he was eventually granted a recall for the Ashes series in 1993 after he had hit a century for Glamorgan against the Australians.
He was capped 18 times by England, with 4 Test and 14 One Day International appearances and named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1998.
In September 2004, he was appointed as assistant coach to the England cricket team under Duncan Fletcher and was part of the famous 2005 Ashes triumph.
Maynard retired in 2005 to take up an Assistant Coaching role with England. Then between his two spells at Glamorgan as Cricket Manager (2007-2010) and Head Coach (2019-2023) he coached the Titans in South Africa, St Lucia Zouks in the Caribbean Premier League and was Director of Cricket at Somerset (2014-2016).
In 2019 Maynard was awarded the MBE for services to sport and charity.
Sushil Sidhu – June 2024