Bruce Murray (cricketer)

Bruce Alexander Grenfell Murray QSO (born 18 September 1940) is a former Test cricketer for New Zealand who played 13 Tests as a right-handed opening batsman between 1968 and 1971. He was a school principal in the Wellington area from 1981 to 2002, and the author of several geography textbooks. Since his retirement from teaching he has been a cricket administrator in Wellington and a historian.

For the Australian cricketer, see Bruce Murray (sportsman).
Bruce Murray
Murray in 1967
Personal information
Full nameBruce Alexander Grenfell Murray
Born (1940-09-18) 18 September 1940
Johnsonville, New Zealand
NicknameBags[1]
Height6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)
BattingRight-handed
BowlingLegbreak
RoleOpening batsman
RelationsRobbie Kerr (son-in-law)
Amelia Kerr (granddaughter)
Jess Kerr (granddaughter)
International information
National side
Test debut (cap 114)15 February 1968 v India
Last Test25 February 1971 v England
Domestic team information
YearsTeam
1958-1973Wellington
Career statistics
Competition Test First-class List A
Matches 13 102 1
Runs scored 598 6257 6
Batting average 23.92 35.55 6.00
100s/50s 0/5 6/43 0/0
Top score 90 213 6
Balls bowled 6 2382 0
Wickets 1 30 –
Bowling average 0.00 28.93 –
5 wickets in innings 0 0 –
10 wickets in match 0 0 n/a
Best bowling 1/0 4/43 –
Catches/stumpings 21/– 124/– 3/–
Source: Cricinfo, 1 April 2017

Early life and education
Murray in 1960

Born in Johnsonville, a northern suburb of Wellington, Bruce Murray attended Hutt Valley High School, then went to Victoria University studying Geography. He completed an MA in Geography at Canterbury University.[2] His masters thesis was on the geography of Tawa.[3]

Domestic career

Murray played his first first-class match at the age of 18 for Wellington against Central Districts at Wellington in 1958-59, scoring 49 in the first innings. He scored his first first-class century in 1961-62, 133 against Central Districts in a match that Wellington won by an innings.[4]

His highest first-class innings came in 1968-69 when he scored 213 out of a total of 392 for 5 declared for Wellington against Otago in Dunedin.[5] He was the leading scorer in the Plunket Shield in 1969-70, and had the highest average: in four matches he made 430 runs at an average of 61.42, with five fifties.[6]

He faced the first ball in the first List A match in New Zealand, bowled by Ken Shuttleworth. It was a match of 40 eight-ball overs a side, between Wellington and the touring MCC at the Basin Reserve in February 1971. Shuttleworth dismissed him for 6, but Murray later took three catches, and Wellington won.[7]

International career

After several seasons in the Plunket Shield, Murray was selected for New Zealand's non-Test tour of Australia in 1967-68, where he was the team's highest scorer, with 351 runs at an average of 43.87.[8]

Murray made his Test debut in early 1968 against India in Dunedin, scoring 17 and 54.[9] In the first innings of the Second Test in Christchurch he scored 74, putting on 126 for the first wicket with Graham Dowling to set New Zealand on the path to its first Test victory over India; he also took four catches in the match.[10]

He toured England in 1969 and India and Pakistan in 1969-70. His highest Test score, 90, and another four catches, helped New Zealand to its first Test victory over Pakistan in a low-scoring match in Lahore in 1969-70; the day after the Test he scored 157 in three and a half hours for the New Zealanders against the BCCP President's XI in Rawalpindi.[11]

Against the Australians in 1969-70, on a difficult pitch in the second unofficial Test at Lancaster Park, he scored a century, taking only 37 minutes over his second fifty.[12] He so dominated the batting that, when he was dismissed for 110, New Zealand's score was only 144 for four.[13]

He is one of just three players to have taken a Test wicket without conceding a run, giving him a career bowling average of 0.00. In the Third Test in Wellington in 1968 he bowled 6 balls and dismissed the Indian opener Syed Abid Ali.[14]

Beliefs

Along with his contemporaries in the New Zealand team Bryan Yuile and Vic Pollard, Murray would not play cricket on Sundays for religious reasons. The later careers of the three were therefore curtailed by the widespread introduction of Sunday play in the early 1970s. In 1967 he wrote a pamphlet, The Christian and Sport.[15]

After the tour of England, India and Pakistan, which took five months from June to November 1969, Murray was glad to get back to his teaching job. He later reflected:

I saw what professional cricket could do to you as a person. You became much more self-centred, much more inward-looking, much too concerned about the wrong parts of the game, watching the averages. Not so team-oriented. I found the notion of professional sport to be a contradiction in terms. It isn't sport. It hardens people, makes them selfish and narrows their view of the world.[16]

After cricket

After his retirement from cricket, Murray continued his teaching career, teaching at Tawa College near Wellington, then at Naenae College in Lower Hutt, where he became principal in 1981, before becoming principal at Tawa College from 1989 to 2002.[2] In June 2002 he was awarded the Queen's Service Order for public service.[17]

He is also a writer. In the 1970s and 1980s he wrote or co-wrote a number of geography textbooks. Since his retirement he has written several books about the Tawa district.

He has lived in Tawa since 1964. He and his wife Shona have three daughters and a son.[2] His granddaughters Amelia Kerr and Jess Kerr have played international cricket for New Zealand; Amelia played in the 2017 Women's Cricket World Cup.[18]

He served as President of Cricket Wellington from 2004 to 2008.[19] Beginning with the 2008-09 season, the Bruce Murray Medal has been awarded annually for sportsmanship in Wellington club cricket.[20]

Books
  • Easter & Modern Issues (1972)
  • Food and Population in Monsoon Asia (1976, with Michael Steer)
  • New Zealand Population (1976, 1977, 1983, with Michael Steer)
  • Japan: Agriculture and Industry (1977, with Michael Steer)
  • India: Agriculture and Industry (1977, with Michael Steer)
  • Relief and Climate of New Zealand (1977, with Michael Steer)
  • A Resource Book of New Zealand Agriculture (1980, with Michael Steer)
  • Population of North America (1981, with Michael Steer)
  • The Streets of Tawa (2005)
  • An Historical Atlas of Tawa (2006)
  • Best of Tawa: Porirua, and They Who Settled It: First Published in the Canterbury Times, 11 March 1914 to 1 July 1914 by Elsdon Best (2007, edited, with David Wood)
  • Rails through the Valley: The Story of the Construction and Use of the Railway Lines through Tawa (2008, with David Parsons)
  • The Tawa Flat Cemetery: 1861–1978 (2009, with Richard Herbert)
  • Arthur Carman's Suitcase: The Life and Times of Arthur Herbert Carman (2011, with David Wood)[21]
  • A History of Tawa (2014)
  • The Tawa Memorial: Commemorating Those from the Tawa District Who Gave Their Lives in the Service of their Country and in the Cause of Peace (2017)
  • Willowbank Reserve, Tawa, and its Environs (2018, with David Parsons)
  • The Careys of Northamptonshire, England & Wellington, New Zealand (2018)
  • The Mexteds of Pluckley, Kent and Tawa Flat, Wellington (2019)

References
  1. McConnell, Lynn. "Spirit of Wellington cricket remembered at dinner". Cricinfo. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
  2. "2 Minutes with Bruce Murray". TawaLink. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  3. "Tawa's History mapped out in geographical relief". Tawa Historical Society. Retrieved 26 September 2019.
  4. "Central Districts v Wellington 1961-62". CricketArchive. Retrieved 10 December 2020.
  5. "Otago v Wellington 1968-69". CricketArchive. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
  6. "Batting in Plunket Shield 1969-70". CricketArchive. Retrieved 25 January 2018.
  7. "Wellington v MCC 1970-71". CricketArchive. Retrieved 10 December 2020.
  8. Don Neely & Richard Payne, Men in White: The History of New Zealand International Cricket, 1894–1985, Moa, Auckland, 1986, p. 377.
  9. Wisden 1969, p. 854.
  10. Wisden 1969, pp. 855-56.
  11. Wisden 1971, pp. 862-863.
  12. Nigel Smith, Kiwis Declare: Players Tell the Story of New Zealand Cricket, Random House, Auckland, 1994, p. 133.
  13. Neely & Payne, p. 420.
  14. "New Zealand v India in 1967/68". CricketArchive. Retrieved 12 July 2007.
  15. "The Christian and sport". Te Puna. Retrieved 14 November 2018.
  16. Nigel Smith, Kiwis Declare, p. 252.
  17. "Queen honours artists, mathematicians, sports people and literary lights". NZ Herald. Retrieved 7 March 2018.
  18. "Women's World Cup – Eight youngsters to watch". International Cricket Council. Retrieved 22 June 2017.
  19. "Annual Report 2012-13" (PDF). Cricket Wellington. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  20. "Unlikely finalists in spotlight". Stuff.co.nz. Retrieved 24 May 2018.
  21. Dando, Kris. "Old suitcase a treasure for Tawa historian". stuff.co.nz. Retrieved 7 July 2018.
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