When we talk about great batsmen from New Zealand we talk about Martin Crowe and recent sensation Kane Williams and Ross Taylor. But before all of them, there was Glenn Turner. Turner who was born on 26th May 1947 was an opening batsman who led the New Zealand batting from late ’60s to early ’80s, achieving many laurels on the way.
He scored close to 3000 runs in test cricket and nearly 1,600 runs in ODI and holder of many batting records for the country. His opening partnership of 387 with Terry Jarvis at Guyana in 1971-72 is the fourth-highest opening partnership in test history. He went on to score a massive 259 in that innings. He scored another double century in that series along with two more double hundreds in the other first-class matches in the tour. Overall he had a great record against West Indies; his average is close to 66. Turner also had good records against the Australians as his dual-century in Christchurch in 1973-74 helped New Zealand to get their first test victory over their neighbour Australia. Turner maintained an average of 49.18 against the Aussies. Against England his test average is around 36, however in the 1973 tour of England he became the first batsman in 35 years to score than 1000 runs in first class cricket before the end of May.
He was also a batting star in the early days of one day cricket. He scored three ODI hundreds with his 171 being the highest ODI score for a period. His unbeaten 171 came in the first day of 1975 world cup against East Africa but did not get much focus due to India’s match against England where chasing 335, Sunil Gavaskar scored 36 of 174 balls.
