Murray Bennett

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.

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.

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.