Michael Atherton

Former cricketer Mike Andrew Atherton was born in Newton Health, Manchester, England. He made his test cricket debut in 1989 and his ODI debut in the next year. Atherton was an opener for England and a very profound player under whose captaincy England played a record of 54 test matches.

Atherton was an exceptional player right from his early years. He has recorded over 3000 runs and 170 wickets while playing for the Manchester Grammer School. This brilliant display of talent led to his selection as a captain for the under-19 team of England, while he was only 16 years of age. During his college years, his abilities grew more grounds as he played for the Cambridge University Cricket Club and the Lanchester County Cricket Club.

England’s tour to Zimbabwe saw Atherton play as a vice-captain in 1989-90. Returning back to England in 1990, Atherton played against New Zealand as an opener along with Graham Gooch, thus defining his unmatched skill set.

Atherton, 25 at that time, was named the captain of England team for test matches when Graham Gooch retired in 1993. Under his captaincy, England went ahead to win against Australia after 18 consecutive losses in test matches.

In the following years, England struggled to compete with teams of Pakistan, Australia and likes while maintaining a steady statistics of wins over teams of New Zealand and India. Struggling efforts did not led to any successful profits and Atherton resigned from one-day cricket. He continued to play test cricket till 2001.

Atherton has played 115 test matches and 54 ODIs securing a total of 7728 and 1791 runs respectively. After retiring from the field, Atherton was successful in attaining fame in the field of media. The Times hired him as a cricket correspondent in 2008 and The Sunday Telegraph featured him as their journalists. During 2002 to 2005, Atherton served as a commentator for Talksport and the BBC Radio. He was a prime member of Channel 4 commentary team during the same time.

In 2005, Atherton was hired by the Sky Sports commentary team.

Career Highlights

He won the Jack Hobbs Memorial Award for the Outstanding SchoolBoy Cricketer at under-15 level in 1983.

In 1998, Atherton scored 185 runs in 643 minutes on field while playing against South Africa.