Mark Benson

Mark Richard Benson

Source: [1], 1 January 2006

Mark Richard Benson (born 6 July 1958) is a former first class cricketer and now a ICC Elite Panel cricket umpire - he played for England in one Test match and one one-day international in 1986.

Benson was born in Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex, England. He was educated at Sutton Valence school in Kent and worked for a time as a marketing assistant for Shell. He then took up full time cricket with Kent.

Playing career

Benson made his first-class debut in 1980 and was virtually an "ever-present" in the Kent side for the next fifteen seasons scoring over 18,000 runs (48 centuries) for the county. He was Kent's third highest aggregate run scorer in the post-war era and his batting average of 40.27 was the fourth highest for a major batsman in Kent's history (after Les Ames, Frank Woolley and Colin Cowdrey). Benson played 268 One Day matches (5 centuries, 53 fifties, 6 "man of the match" awards) for Kent scoring 7814 runs at an average of 31.89.

For the 1991 Benson was appointed captain of Kent and on his first day as captain he scored a career best 257 against Hampshire. Under his captaincy Kent were runners-up in the County Championship in 1992, Sunday league champions in 1995 (runners up in 1993) and Benson and Hedges Cup finalists in 1995. At the end of the 1995 season Benson was forced to retire due to a knee injury.

In 1986 Benson played one Test Match and one ODI for England against India.

Umpiring career

After retiring from playing Benson became an umpire, making his first-class umpiring debut in 1997 and standing in international matches for the first time in 2004. He stood in eight matches in the 2007 Cricket World Cup.

In April 2006, having stood in eight Tests and twenty-four one-day internationals, Benson became one of three umpires promoted from the Emirates International panel to the Emirates ICC Elite umpire panel.

Whilst umpiring the second test between South Africa and India at Durban on 28 December 2006 Benson had to leave the field, after suffering from heart palpatations.

Playing career statistics

	1st Class	One Day
Matches	292	269
Innings	491	257
Runs	18387	7838
Highest Score	257	119
Average	40.23	31.86
100/50	99/48	5/53

Umpiring career statistics

	First	Last	Total
Tests	Bangladesh v New Zealand at Dhaka, Oct 2004	South Africa v India at Durban, Dec 2006	15
ODIs	England v West Indies at Nottingham, Jun 2004	Pakistan v Sri Lanka at Abu Dhabi, May 2007	48

Forthcoming Appointments

India and South Africa in Ireland - ODIs at Belfast - June and July 2007

Benson will stand on-field in the following matches:

• Ireland v India on 23 June
• India v S Africa on 26 June
• India v S Africa on 29 June

Benson will be the third umpire in the following matches:

• Ireland v S Africa on 24 June
• India v S Africa on 1 July

India v Pakistan in Scotland - Friendship Cup ODI at Glasgow - July 2007

Benson will stand on-field in this one-off match:

• India v Pakistan on July 3

England v West Indies - ODI series - July 2007

Benson will stand in one match in this series:

• England v West Indies at Trent Bridge, 7 July

Trivia

• Benson scored a century every 10.23 innings, the third highest rate for Kent.
• Benson scored a century in each innings v Warwickshire in 1993.
• Brian Luckhurst named Benson as Kent's greatest post war opening batsmen and referred to him as "His generation's unsung hero."
• Benson and Neil Taylor scored the highest opening partnership (300) for Kent v Derbyshire in 1991.
• Mark is married to Sarah Benson (formally Sarah Waitt) and has two children, Edward Benson and Lawrence Benson.

External links

• Mark Benson at ESPNcricinfo
• Mark Benson from CricketArchive
• Benson, Doctrove and Rauf elevated to Elite Panel from Cricinfo