Cricket: Chris Martin a long way from lowly school team

4.00pm - With one matchwinning bowling performance Chris Martin is suddenly New Zealand cricket's man of the moment but his success has been anything but overnight writes MARK GEENTY.

The moment wasn't lost on Chris Martin as he sat alongside Chris Cairns this week as two of the stars of New Zealand's second test hammering of South Africa.

Seventeen years earlier the pair couldn't have been further apart -- Cairns the golden boy for the Christchurch Boys' High School first 11 and Martin 23 teams below in the bottom team at one of New Zealand's proudest cricketing nurseries.

"I used to sit on the boundary and watch him as a third former. He was a bit of a superstar, and having people like that coming out of there gave you hope that maybe one day you could play for New Zealand if you worked hard enough," Martin said this week.

Fast forward little more than a decade and Martin found himself in Afrikaaner heartland in Bloemfontein in 2000, a late callup to the injury-hit New Zealand test team.

He promptly snared South Africa's batting rock Gary Kirsten as his first test wicket, signalling a knack of dismissing the opposition's best batsmen which have included Zimbabwe's Andy Flower, Pakistan's Yousuf Youhana and Inzamam-ul-Haq, Australia's Ricky Ponting and England's Graham Thorpe.

Martin's debut was a memorable one. Having claimed Kirsten's wicket, he then padded up as New Zealand's innings collapsed and local hero Allan Donald zeroed in on his 300th test wicket.

Waiting for the ninth wicket to fall, Martin drifted away from the team and was spied behind the press box watching anxiously, a cigarette glowing in his hand.

He made what is still his highest test score -- seven -- and explains there was good reason for his angst.

"There were cannons going off. Donald had just got his 300th wicket and I thought if ever there was a time he would be floating on air it would be then.

"I actually survived it, I don't know why. Maybe my adrenaline was flowing more than his."

Martin's batting ability has always been a standing joke, he has a mortgage on the No 11 spot and was good humoured enough to acknowledge it this week, saying "it adds to the entertainment".

Despite his man of the match 11 for 180 at Eden Park, the eighth-best New Zealand test bowling analysis, he also brought up a world record for nine consecutive scores of nought or nought not out.

He puts it down to his primary school days where bowling always took preference.

"I was never really a fan of batting because we didn't have pads, and a whack on the shin put me off.

"Bowling I was always not too bad at, reasonably co-ordinated, but it's taken at least 20 years to get it fine tuned enough."

His cricketing role model was another batting bunny, Australia's Glenn McGrath, due to his outstanding bowling success with a similarly modest physique.

Early on, Martin showed a rare ability to bowl fast, climbing from the bottom team to the lofty perch of first 11 cricket in the sixth form, but it wasn't until he was 23 that he made his Canterbury debut.

At that stage he was drifting around Canterbury University sporting long hair and a goatee beard, and suddenly realised that cricket was a career path.

His mentor was unconventional -- a West Indian named Garfield Charles who arrived from Guyana to coach at his St Albans club. He fine tuned Martin's action and still offers timely advice.

Charles' encouragement, and that from another big influence, Martin's father Terry -- "he never stopped believing in me" -- were much needed in the past two years when he was overtaken by Shane Bond and Ian Butler in the pecking order after playing his 11th test in Lahore in May 2002.

Martin decided to bulk up at the gym and tone down the nicotine intake, moving from a "strapping" 73kg to an "imposing" 82kg. It helped his durability at the bowling crease and enabled him to do more damage in latter spells as happened at Eden Park.

He was still resigned to maybe not wearing the black cap again after being left out of New Zealand Cricket's contracted players list last June.

He re-enrolled at Canterbury University, resumed his political science degree and even got his driver's licence for the first time. He used to cycle everywhere and carry his gear on his back but after some winter snow in Christchurch realised it was a smart idea to get an alternative means of transport.

"I still don't own a car but my girlfriend lets me drive hers."

Martin got his lifeline back to the New Zealand team from a sharp domestic season with Canterbury and the recommendation from Stephen Fleming and Mark Richardson to coach John Bracewell that he was the best bowler to left-handers in the country -- of which South Africa had three in their top six.

He obliged with a dream display of swing and seam bowling in Auckland, removing South African captain Graeme Smith twice, adding Kirsten's scalp again to ruin his 100th test and also dismissing their best player Jacques Kallis.

It booked him a certain tour to England in April and the financial security of a likely recall to the contracted players list.

Martin never lost his self-belief despite the two-year gap between his 11th and 12th tests.

"Just getting quality players out enhances that belief. I always felt I had wicket-taking balls that could compete at this level.

"That self-belief never really fluctuated but the two years playing for Canterbury helped me enjoy it a bit more."

Now 29, Martin has taken the sudden media attention in his stride and proved an honest, thoughtful interview subject with a quiet confidence and a fair degree of self-deprecating humour.

"I know how fickle it is. I've been in this position before where I arrived on the scene and everybody wanted to chat for a while.

"I'm just going to enjoy this particular moment of good fortune and hopefully keep fulfilling the potential I thought I had at this level."

- NZPA