Murray Bennett

Still heavily involved with the St George District Cricket Club, Bennett served as President for a time and the club's talent identification and development program is named the Murray Bennett Pathway. He was known to be selling insurance in 2007.

Bennett continued playing for NSW until the 1987-88 season. His last season was not a success. Playing in only five of the Sheffield Shield matches because of his lack of productivity, Bennett took only four wickets at 43.50 and scored 33 runs at 5.50, and was dropped for the last time in January. He was not selected in any one-day matches.

During the 1986–87 season, Bennett's bowling waned. In six Shield matches he took only nine wickets at 49.33 with a best of 3/79 against Western Australia. Although his lower-order batting still yielded 190 runs at 31.66, he was dropped in the latter stages of the season and missed New South Wales' victory in the Shield final. He was selected for only one limited-overs match; he had no success, conceding 34 runs from five overs without taking a wicket.

He was selected for the 1985 Ashes tour to England, but took only three wickets in four first-class matches of the Tests and was overlooked for the opening Ashes match. During June, Bennett was released from the squad to play for Church in the Lancashire League, and he took 11 wickets in two single-innings matches before rejoining the Test team. He only took 12 wickets in his next six county matches, but after taking 1/99 and 4/39 in the last of these games, which helped Australia to a seven-wicket over Kent, he was called up for the final Test of his career at The Oval. Australia were trailing 1–2 heading into the Sixth Test, and a win would have been enough for them to retain the Ashes. Bennett had little effect, taking 1/111 and scoring 12 and 11 as England won by an innings to win the series 3–1. His only wicket was that of Mike Gatting and he ended the tour with only 16 wickets at 47.87 and 111 runs at 15.85 in 11 matches.

Initially, Bennett accepted an offer to join the rebel tour to South Africa in 1985-86, who were banned from international sport because of their policies of apartheid. This would have earned him a suspension from mainstream cricket, but he withdrew at an early stage without financial inducement.—

Bennett was overlooked for national selection during the 1985–86 season and played in all of New South Wales's 11 Shield matches for the season. In the fourth match of the season, he took 4/56 in the second innings against the touring New Zealand, removing John Wright, John Reid, Bruce Edgar and Jeremy Coney. He then played a prominent role in consecutive Shield victories. Bennett made an unbeaten 55 in a rearguard fightback that took New South Wales to 286, before taking 4/47, helping his state to a 99-run first innings lead over Western Australia. The match was eventually won by 151 runs. He then took 4/38 and 3/32 in an innings win over South Australia. In these two matches, Bennett tied down the opposition; 44% of his overs were maidens and he conceded 1.39 runs per over. Bennett later took 4/71 against Victoria and was prominent in an innings win over Tasmania. He scored an unbeaten 57 and took 3/53 and 2/23. Bennett ended the season with 32 wickets at 27.40 and 300 runs at 33.33.

During the winter of 1984, Bennett travelled to England to play in the Lancashire League for Ramsbottom Cricket Club as their overseas professional. He started relatively slowly, taking 12 wickets in his first five innings with the ball.

Despite his poor domestic form in one-dayers, Bennett was selected for the Australian team on a One Day tour to India in 1984, making his ODI debut in the fifth and final match of the series in Indore, taking an economical 0/37 from his ten overs as the hosts made 5/235. He was not required to bat as the Australians completed a six-wicket victory. He then took 1/33 from his ten overs as the tourists defeated Bombay before returning to Australia.

In the 1984-85 Sheffield Shield, Bennett struggled to make the NSW team when not playing in Sydney, however, he made the most of his chance in the tour match against the powerful West Indians, the dominant team in world cricket at the time. Before this match, he had taken only two wickets in as many first-class matches for the season. In the first innings Bennett made an unbeaten 16 in his team's 287, before taking 2/53 to help dismiss the tourists for 212, securing a 75-run lead. His victims were Gus Logie and the leading batsmen in world cricket at the time, Viv Richards. In the second innings, he made six as the hosts collapsed for 129 to leave the Caribbean visitors with a target of only 205. He took 6/32 in the second innings, his best figures in first-class cricket, including the wickets of opener Desmond Haynes, Richards and captain Clive Lloyd to give NSW victory over the tourists by 72 runs. In the next match, Bennett continued his barren run and went wicketless against South Australia, and was dropped from the state team.

Following his success in the Tests, Bennett was retained for ODIs. He had taken a total of 3/53 from 19 overs in his two domestic one-dayers for the season up to that point. Bennett played in the first five matches in the 1984-85 World Series Cup. In the first match at Melbourne, he bowled an economical spell of 1/23 from his ten overs, his maiden ODI wicket being Gordon Greenidge. Bennett's effort was not enough to stop the West Indies from reaching their target of 241 with seven wickets and more than five overs in hand as they scored quickly from his colleagues. He then returned to his home crowd at the SCG and took 1/44 from his ten overs, removing Brendon Kuruppu before the Australian batsmen completed a six-wicket win over Sri Lanka. In the next match in Brisbane, the West Indian batsmen began to get the better of Bennett after his success in matches earlier in the season. Bennett batted for the first time in ODIs and scored three as Australia were dismissed for 191. He was then attacked by the tourists, who took 21 runs from his three overs en route to a five-wicket win with more than 12 overs in hand. The series proceeded back to Sydney for the next match, but Bennett had no success on his home turf as the West Indies took 40 runs from his six overs and completed another five-wicket win. After taking 0/48 from nine overs in a defeat to Sri Lanka, Bennett was dropped for the remaining 11 ODIs of the Australian summer. He ended the ODI campaign with two wickets at 88.00 and an economy rate of 4.63.

However, the bespectacled Bennett was unable to break through to first-class level until his Sheffield Shield debut in the 1982-83 season at the age of 26. In his debut match against Western Australia, he took 2/74 from 52 overs including 25 maidens, his victims being for Test players Craig Serjeant and Tony Mann. He also scored an unbeaten 30 in a high-scoring draw. In the following match against Tasmania, he took 4/55 from 40.1 overs in another economical performance that featured 22 maidens, but was unable to prevent a seven-wicket defeat. Bennett went wicketless in the next match against South Australia, but did score an unbeaten 59, his maiden-first-class fifty. The spinner broke through for his first five-wicket haul in the next match against Western Australia. After taking 3/47 in the first innings, he claimed 5/39 to dismiss the Western Australians for 197. Of his match total of 65.2 overs, 39 were maidens.

Known for his accuracy and his well-disguised arm ball, he quickly formed an integral part of the bowling attack that made the state the dominant domestic team in the Sheffield Shield in the 1980s. Forming a spin-oriented attack with Bob Holland (leg spin) and Greg Matthews (off spin), Bennett played in all of New South Wales' ten round-robin Shield matches, as well as two first-class fixtures against the touring England and Sri Lankan cricket team.

Bennett made a promising start to his career as a left arm orthodox spin bowler by making a successful foray into Sydney Grade Cricket for St. George in 1973–74 and was selected for the New South Wales combined schoolboy team. During the 1976–77 season, he broke into the New South Wales Colts, the state youth team. Playing in two matches for the summer, he took nine wickets at 10.44. In the second of these matches he scored 102 not out and took a total of 6/34 in an innings win over Queensland Colts. Despite this, he failed to gain selection in the youth team in the following season and he did not reappear until the 1978–79 season. He took six wickets at 12.66 but failed to make any impact with the bat, scoring 19 runs at 4.75. The following season, he played another two games for the Colts, taking five wickets at 28.80 and scoring an unbeaten 116 in one match.

Murray John Bennett (born 6 October 1956, Brisbane, Queensland) is a former Australian cricketer who played in three Tests and eight ODIs from 1984 to 1985.