FULL NAME: Douglas Anthony Marillier
BORN: 24 April 1978, at Harare
MAJOR TEAMS: CFX Academy (1998/99-1999/2000), Midlands (1999/2000 to date)
KNOWN AS: Doug/Douggie Marillier
BATTING STYLE: Right Hand Bat
BOWLING STYLE: Right Arm Medium Pace; Occasional Wicket-keeper
OCCUPATION: Professional cricketer

FIRST-CLASS DEBUT: 2-4 October 1998, ZCU President's XI v Indians, at Sunrise Sports Club
TEST DEBUT: 26-30 December 2000, v New Zealand, at Wellington
ODI DEBUT: 30 September 2000, v New Zealand, at Queens Sports Club, Bulawayo.

BIOGRAPHY (updated January 2001)

Doug Marillier is one of Zimbabwe's most determined young cricketers, and he has a clear liking for big scores. His career is all the more remarkable for the fact that he was once so badly injured in a car accident that it was feared he would never be able to walk, let alone play again.

Doug has a strong family background in the game. His father Tony was a stalwart for the Police Cricket Club for years in the sixties and seventies, with a reputation as a powerful leg-side player, and he represented the national side in a couple of one-day matches, but without success. "I had no choice but to play cricket," Doug grins. "I was eight days old when I was given my first cricket ball! I've an older brother [Eian] who's a very good sportsman and being in competition with him was always hard. The only sport I was ever any good at compared to his ability was cricket, so that's how it came about!" He also has a talented younger brother, Stephen, who is a leading schools player.

Doug grew up in Harare, apart from a couple of years spent in Masvingo. He grew up with the game, spending much of the weekends at cricket grounds where his father was playing, and the family also played the game at home. Doug attended North Park primary school, the same school that Andy and Grant Flower attended, and won a place in the school Colts team when in Grade 3, playing with and against boys who were mostly two years older than he. His father was the coach, so he suspects a bit of nepotism was involved at that stage! He claims that he was a late developer, and turned in no notable performances at junior school. "I showed a bit of potential, I suppose, but didn't really have the co-ordination to go any further," he says. His highest score was, as far as he remembers, 45 against Lewisam School. "It's not terribly great, but for me it was fantastic!"

He progressed to Eaglesvale High School, and in his first two years there, "I grew into my body, I think, and things just seemed to happen." He remembers batting at number ten in his first match there, and failing. His team was not very strong, though, and because of this, he says, "everyone gets a chance, week in and week out." He remembers that the turning point was probably a match against Prince Edward School, where he scored 63 not out batting at number five or six, `and things just progressed from there'. He was soon opening the innings and the centuries began to come. He pays tribute to his coach at the time, Barry Lake, who he recalls produced a great many good cricketers, including the Marilliers, the Matambanadzos and the Campbells.

He was sent to trials for the national Under-16 team, the first time he had ever been considered for a representative side, but failed to gain selection. He did make the Mashonaland side, at a time when he was averaging about 81 at school, with several centuries behind him, but thinks his poor fielding counted against him, added to the fact that he did not bowl.

At junior school he had often kept wicket. "The whole family has been wicket-keepers, my brother's a wicket-keeper, Dad was a wicket-keeper, so I got forced into it as well. I consider myself a great bowler, but unfortunately no one else does!" He remembers, though, taking seven for 72 at Under-13 level at school, opening the bowling with seamers.

In 1994, at the age of 16, he played for the Mashonaland Under-19 team in the inter-provincial competition. Two weeks later he was involved in a horrific car accident. A truck pulled out directly in front of the car in which he was travelling, and they ran straight into it. He broke both femurs; he had a compound fracture of the right leg, severing the main artery, and the bone in his left leg was crushed just above the knee. He was in a wheelchair for three months, and missed a whole year of cricket; at the time many thought he might well never play again. He was just about to write his O-levels, but missed the year of school as well.

While he was recovering and still unable to play himself, Doug involved himself in coaching, and a bit of umpiring, to stay involved in the game. Doug himself never lost faith that he would one day play again, and this belief helped him through a difficult time. He finally returned to play in a school match almost a year after the accident, opening the batting against Oakham School from England. Rather short of confidence, he padded away the first ball, to be given out lbw. He did rather better in his next match, scoring a sixty.

After this Doug went from strength to strength, and his final record for the Eaglesvale first team included nine centuries and two double-centuries. His first double-century was 218 not out against Dean Close from England, and included a second-wicket partnership of exactly 300 with Gary Brent, who also made a century. In his final match for Eaglesvale he scored another double-century, this time against Watershed School. "The night before had been our Speech Night, so everyone had gone out and got extremely drunk!" he said. "I came to the ground the next morning feeling not so well, and I thought, `There are a lot of youngsters in the side who can do the job, so I'll just have a hit-about', and it came off! I made 202."

He was appointed captain for his last two years which, he says, "improved my bowling a lot, as it's the captain's prerogative to bowl!" He had the good fortune to play in a strong team, which also included when he was first selected for it Gary Brent, Dirk Viljoen and the two Matambanadzos. "It was easy to learn from guys who were so much better than I was," he says.

In his Lower Sixth year at school, Doug was selected for the Zimbabwe Under-18 team as captain. "I don't think I was a particularly good captain," he admits. "I was captaining, batting number three and also keeping wicket. I couldn't handle the pressure; I thought I could, but I wasn't good enough. We went on a tour to South Africa, but didn't do so well, and I think a lot of that was due to my not-so-great captaincy. I did all right with the bat; luckily I've been able to play an awful lot of my cricket with Mark Vermeulen and when one of us does well, the other tends to do very well as well. I've always had Mark to look up to and play with on Under-19 tours. When we went overseas and played against England Under-19s, we broke the world record opening stand for an Under-19 Test [268]. I got 150 and Mark got 134.

"I just progressed from there. I came back with an awful lot of confidence from that and went straight into league cricket, and because I'd done pretty well I made the Zimbabwe B squad. I was in that squad for a year and a half or two years before I actually got to play. This year I got a permanent place in the side and I've done pretty well." He scored 108 against Border in a one-day game this season, and five or six fifties in total. Doug also won a place in the Zimbabwe Development team to play in the Zone Six competition in Namibia, where Zimbabwe finished second to Kenya and Doug was the team's second-highest run-scorer.

Doug joined Harare Sports Club at the tender age of 11, although he did not get a game until he was about 15. He stayed at the club until the age of 19, but was unable to command a place in the first team, so he moved to Alexandra Sports Club. He made his highest league score of 130 for them against his former team, no doubt aware that he had a point to prove! He has scored plenty of fifties but, in the 50-over matches, found it difficult to convert them into centuries; he bats more comfortably in the longer version of the game.

He has played winter cricket one season for Enterprise before his regular overseas engagements started, doing well enough to score 160-odd on three occasions, averaging about 130. He showed again his determination to run up really big scores once well set. "Unfortunately I have a problem in the thirties," he admits. "Once I get past thirty I generally make a big score."

Doug has not kept wicket regularly since he played for the national Under-18 team, but he still considers himself a useful stand-in `stopper' and can take over at times when the regular keeper may be injured.

After leaving school at the end of 1997, Doug coached for three months at Watershed College, and then went to England to play for Kenilworth in the Birmingham League. He scored a record 1207 league runs for them at an average of about 68. They asked him to return in 1999, which he did, scoring 1218 runs this time. He planned to return to the Birmingham League in 2000, to play for Bromsgrove this time, but his selection for the Zimbabwe A tour to Sri Lanka prevented him from doing so. This gave him three months without cricket after four or five years without a break, but he felt the break did him good.

In 1999 he won selection as a member of the first intake of students in the Zimbabwe Cricket Academy. He was encouraged particularly by his father - "my dad's always backed my ability in cricket, probably even more so than I have," he says. "He's always been the force behind me, and he said, `You've got nothing to lose; go to the Academy.' It was something I wanted to do, but I was still deciding whether or not cricket was the thing for me. My dad, and the whole family really, and my mates, all supported me, and it was easy to come to a place where I had two very good friends, Mark Vermeulen and Neil Ferreira."

The highlights of his year were a couple of centuries he scored against local teams. "The Academy that year was more of a learning curve for both the pupils and the management," he says. "I don't think there were any great highlights. One was that I got to face Brett Lee, which was a great experience, when we played the Australian Academy. The best thing was that we got to play a lot more cricket. Instead of just playing one game a week, as we usually would if we were just playing club cricket, we had three or four games a week, and a couple of three-day games, which we had never played before."

Doug's promise and determination were so highly regarded that he was selected as the one young Zimbabwe player to visit the Australian Academy for two and a half weeks. "It did an awful lot for my confidence and helped me a lot in terms of actually playing the game," he says.

The downside was that he missed the warm-up matches before the Tests against the touring New Zealand team in early September, so the selectors had no form on which to consider him for selection. He did score two centuries in four matches, though, one in the final of the Lilthurbridge Cup in the Mashonaland Country Districts winter league, and the one that probably made the greatest impression, for the Academy against the New Zealanders in a warm-up match before the first one-day international.

Doug was immediately placed in the squad for the three-match one-day series, and replaced Craig Wishart as opening partner to Alistair Campbell in the second match, at Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo. He was lucky enough to receive his first ball on his legs, enabling him to put it away for three to midwicket. He offered a couple of difficult chances but went on to contribute 27 of an opening partnership of 83, a major factor in the eventual winning of the match, before pulling a long hop to midwicket, much to his annoyance. He bettered this with 47 in the second match, this time putting on 97 with Alistair, and he had made an immediate impression on the international game.

Zimbabwe next travelled to Nairobi for the ICC Knockout Competition, but unfortunately the team had already been selected, so Doug was unable to go. He was naturally a member of the following overseas trip, the extended tour of Sharjah, India, New Zealand and Australia. Opening the batting in five one-day internationals, his highest score was only 11, but the tour selectors persevered with him, putting him down to number seven, where he scored 38 against India. He also made his Test debut against New Zealand, scoring 28.

His lack of consistency meant that he did not play in the triangular tournament in Australia, which also included West Indies, until the final match. He could hardly have had a more testing experience, as a fine Zimbabwe batting performance after Australia scored over 300 meant that he came in at number seven needing to score 15 in the final over, bowled by Glenn McGrath, to win the match.

He moved across to the first two balls he received from McGrath and flicked them over his shoulder to fine leg for boundaries, reviving hopes of an incredible Zimbabwe victory. But he was just unable to complete the job, and his team lost by one run. His two courageous and unorthodox boundary strokes, though, made him a legend, temporarily at least, with the shot becoming known as `the Marillier'.

Back in Zimbabwe, he did well in the Logan Cup, captaining the Midlands team and scoring two centuries to average 55. However, this was down the order, as he decided his technique was not tight enough for him to open the innings. Despite his domestic success, he failed to keep his place against Bangladesh, and decided to take up a club appointment in England rather than stay at home and hope for selection against India and West Indies. He might have had a match or two, in fact, as Zimbabwe suffered from injuries, and had he been available he might have played in the final Test against the West Indies instead of Hamilton Masakadza, who hit a century on debut.

He won back his place in the one-day side against England, but failed again with the bat; it was surprisingly his bowling that kept him in the team, after he took four wickets for 38 against England at Bulawayo and continued thereafter to bowl his flighted off-breaks usefully. After scoring 19 runs in five innings, two of them opening, he broke through with 52 not out at number six against Sri Lanka in Sharjah, followed by 37 in Pakistan. Until the time of writing he has not done much with bat or ball since then, but has kept his place in the team. He also won back his Test place, again at number seven, and he scored a fifty in both the two Test matches against Bangladesh.

As a batsman Doug tends to favour the leg side, as did his father, and admits to a tendency to play across the line if he is not careful. At present he is more confident facing pace rather than spin, and prefers one of the first three positions in the batting order; he likes to open in one-day matches, but prefers three in the longer game. He can field in virtually any position, usually taking the slips or covers, but he has a good arm and can also field on the boundary.

Doug has largely worked out his own technique as a batsman, and feels that coaches have helped him most in developing the mental side of his game. Barry Lake, and also Andy Pycroft, coach on the Under-19 tour to England, have helped him most here. He had little captaincy experience since leaving school until he was appointed to take charge of Midlands, and was not over-eager for the job, preferring a role as vice-captain. "I tend to pick up things better when I'm not the captain," he said. "I can pass on suggestions to the captain. And if we lose I don't get the blame!"

He has had some finger injuries recently that have handicapped his game. At fielding practice for the Zimbabwe Board XI with Trevor Penney, he tried to take a very high catch with one hand, but the ball lodged between his fingers and split the webbing. After leaving the Academy he was posted to Kwekwe in the Midlands to complete his three-year contract, and in a Logan Cup match for them against the 2000 Academy he had his finger broken by a ball from Travis Friend that reared from a length. He did not realise it had been broken at first, and scored centuries in that match and the following one, before the break was discovered, putting him out of the final match.

Doug has `absolutely no qualifications' outside the game of cricket, although he now has coaching and umpiring qualifications. "I was thinking of doing something to do with business management in the time I have off after coming back from Sri Lanka," he says. "Something to do with computers and business management, just to get something behind me. If my cricket were to fail, I'd look to go into commentating." A fluent and interesting speaker, that is a very real possibility.

Cricketing heroes: "Grant and Andy Flower. A lot of people will look at the world and see players they would like to emulate, like Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar. I agree that they're both fantastic players, but I've met Grant and Andy Flower and they're both people. I think it's just as important as being a great cricketer to be a good person as well."

Toughest opponent: "People argue with me on this point, but there are a couple. One is Kevin Duers, who plays for the same club that I've played for, so I've only faced him in the nets. But he's fantastic, and I think he's one of the most difficult bowlers to play. Also Glenn McGrath - not that I faced him an awful lot when we played against Australia!" (This was before the famous match in Australia!)

Fondest memories: "Playing with a great bunch of guys. Everyone loves to win the game and no one likes to lose, but it's more important I would say to play with a great bunch of guys. I played for a club overseas that was full of really good guys, and I've played for the Midlands this year, which is full of fantastic blokes; Alex Sports Club, and also the Zim B guys. I think that's what cricket is all about."

Other sports: Hockey at school and club level. Tennis - "my dad's a good tennis player so we play tennis a lot. I'm playing a bit of squash at the moment to try and keep fit. But I was never an athlete; I was one of those guys who are quite good with a ball, but can't run or jump to save my life."

Other interests: "I used to have a lot of hobbies, but since cricket's taken over I haven't had a lot of time to do other things like fishing." Except outside the off stump? "Exactly! I do quite a bit of that, actually!"

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