Martin Guptill lost three toes in a forklift accident at 13 and feared he would never play again. He holds the highest individual score in the history of the World Cup andNew Zealand’s leading T20I run-scorer, with 3,531 runs at 135.7. Happy 40th birthday to the most improbable record-holder cricket has.
His teammates call him Two Toes. His father’s explanation of what the accident did to him is the best line anybody has offered about his career: it probably made him more determined, because he realised in a flash that everything could be lost, and he has been making the most of it ever since.
The medical logic said his balance and running would be permanently compromised. Instead he built a front-foot plant that gave him enormous leverage, both for boundary hitting and for those rocket throws from the deep. Two hundred and twenty-two international catches. And the run-out of MS Dhoni in a World Cup semi-final, from side-on, with one stump to aim at.
But I keep coming back to the 2013 tour of England, because almost nobody mentions it. Three ODIs, 330 runs, dismissed once. A hundred not out at Lord’s, then 189 not out at Southampton off just 155 balls, against Anderson, Woakes and Swann.
Then Wellington, 2015. Dropped on four by Marlon Samuels in the opening over. He finished on 237 not out from 163 balls, 24 fours and 11 sixes, the highest score anybody has made in a World Cup and the second-highest in all one-day cricket.
He left the game as New Zealand’s leading T20I run-scorer, with 3,531 runs at 135.7.
Two toes on his left foot, and the biggest score the World Cup has ever seen.
Happy birthday, Guppy.