An enigmatic strokemaker by design, Martin Guptill has been one of the mainstays of New Zealand's batting in white-ball cricket over the years. Guptill's early life was struck with tragedy when at the age of 14, he suffered a forklift accident which resulted in him losing three toes on his foot. However, he put that setback aside and he featured in the New Zealand team for the Under-19 World Cup that was held in Sri Lanka.
Guptill played for the Auckland Aces in the 2007-08 season and he started off by scoring 99 in his debut match. He topped the batting charts and then did the same during the Emerging Players Tournament in Australia later that year. An ODI call up happened soon and he grabbed it with both hands, smashing a fine century on debut - the first Kiwi batsman to achieve this feat. The heroics in the series helped him get a Test cap for the tour of India.
A key feature of Guptill's batting is the rhythm of his strokeplay. When in flow, he is a very difficult batsman to stop because of his impeccable ability to deal the pacers as well as spinners. There could be days when he can get out in frustrating ways but that's the nature of the beast that Guptill is. Won't be wrong to say that all this is worth the kind of matchwinner he has been for the Kiwis.
In the 2011 World Cup, Guptill was the second highest run-getter for New Zealand and in the 2015 edition, he again performed fairly well including an unbeaten 237 in the quarterfinal which made him the first Kiwi batsman to notch up an ODI double ton. There have been several impact knocks by Guptill over the years, most of which have single-handedly destroyed the opponents. The consecutive ODI tons in England during the 2013 tour which helped New Zealand win the series, comes to mind. He even held the highest individual score by a Kiwi then (189) before breaking it himself in the 2015 World Cup.
Although he's been a mainstay in the shorter formats with streaks of genius here and there, that's not been emulated in the Test arena where he was being persisted with, for a period of time. The 2016 tour of India was the tipping point after which the selectors decided to omit Guptill from the Test squad. It wasn't as if he was failing but his continuing issues of not converting starts into significant knocks meant that he had to make way. With the success of Raval and Latham at the top, it's tough to see Guptill making a comeback in red-ball cricket.
Guptill might have exited the Test squad but in the shorter formats, his impact is obvious to one and all. The fantastic century in Australia in late 2016 and the dazzling 180* against South Africa in early 2017 were some of the strokemaker's recent emphatic statements in white-ball cricket. He continues to be a significant player at the top of the order for New Zealand and with Colin Munro joining him as the co-opener, the Kiwis now have ample firepower to kickstart an innings. As far as T20 leagues go, the ability to hit them clean has resulted in stints with IPL's Mumbai Indians, CPL's Guyana Amazon Warriors as well as St Kitts and Nevis Patriots, and BBL's Sydney Thunder. He's also played in the English county for Derbyshire and more recently Lancashire.
World Cup - Through the years
In World Cup 2011, Guptill was the second highest run-getter for New Zealand and in the 2015 edition, he again performed fairly well including an unbeaten 237 in the quarterfinal which made him the first Kiwi batsman to notch up an ODI double ton. There have been several impact knocks by Guptill over the years, most of which have single-handedly destroyed the opponents. Martin even held the highest individual score by a Kiwi then (189) before breaking it himself in the 2015 World Cup.
Martin Guptill's average in ODIs is 43.51 while his average in World Cup matches is 57-odd. The only drawback is that the opener has scored these runs against sides that have a rather weak bowling line-up. He has struggled against sides like Australia, South Africa and England. In World Cup 2019, he'll be facing all the teams at least once, hence Guptill needs to make sure he gets runs not only against the weaker oppositions but also against the heavyweights.
By Hariprasad Sadanandan