Glenn Turner was dogged by criticism of his slow scoring, but his record-breaking performances for Worcestershire in 1970 earned him a Wisden Cricketer of the Year award.
Glenn Turner became one of Worcestershire’s – and New Zealand’s – greatest batsmen. He scored 2,991 Test runs at 44.64. He is the third highest scorer in Worcestershire’s history with 22,298 runs to his name
When Glenn Turner clipped the medium-paced bowling of Warwickshire’s Billy Ibadulla for three runs in the final match of last season, he not only completed a Worcestershire batting record of ten centuries in a summer, but he also forged the final link in a chain that had taken him from school cricket in Dunedin, New Zealand, to the first-class game at New Road, Worcester.
For it was Ibadulla who had first convinced the frail-looking, but firmly-dedicated Turner that he had enough ability to make the grade in England. Ibadulla, while on a regular winter coaching mission in New Zealand for the Otago Cricket Association, spotted Turner’s potential on a visit to Otago Boy’s High School.
The influence of Ibadulla was the final, and probably most decisive, assistance Turner received from three first-class players. Langford Smith, the captain of Otago, introduced him to the basics at primary school and then the coaching was taken up by one of New Zealand’s most famous sons, Bert Sutcliffe.
Meanwhile, the people who know him better than most agreed that his best is still to come. “He will keep on improving,” forecast Ibadulla. “He will break more Worcestershire, and, later, New Zealand records,” said Graveney on his departure for Australia. Turner himself has a tankard, presented by Worcestershire, to remind him not only of ten centuries, but of joining Kenyon (three times), Gibbons (twice), Walters, Nichol and Graveney as the only players to have scored 2,000 runs in a season for the county.
