Matthew James Prior was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in the early 1980’s before moving to England at the age of 11. He represented England at all ages up to and including the U19’s squad, making his Sussex debut in 2001. Currently, Matt is arguably the world’s leading wicket keeper batsman in Test cricket, a belief held by a number of players and pundits around the world, with an average of 44.71 and 144 catches to his name.

Matt has hit more than 10,500 first class runs since his debut for Sussex in 2001, and has been involved in three County Championship titles in 2003, 2006 and 2007. With a particularly impressive 201* at the start of the 2004 season, Matt amassed 1,158 runs to be crowned the county’s top scorer for that campaign.

His first International call-up came for the one-day series in Zimbabwe in 2004, in which he was positioned at the top of the order due to his aggressive batting. Over the past 7 years in the shorter formats of the game, Matt has played 68 ODI’s and 10 T20 Internationals. On 26th August 2008 he took six catches against South Africa at Trent Bridge to become only the second Englishman to achieve this feat in an ODI.

Matt began his England Test career in thrilling fashion against the West Indies in 2007, becoming the first England wicket keeper to score a century on debut with an unbeaten 126 at Lord’s. Following this, questions arose about Matt’s keeping capabilities despite his extra batting class, however, through hard work and an ambition to succeed in all that he does, it was not long before Matt returned to make the wicket keeping berth his own. A particular career highlight was England’s Ashes triumph in 2009. Matt was one of the series unsung heroes, providing momentum-shifting cameos at No.6 and pulling off a series of impressive catches and stumpings. On the return series to Australia in 2010/11, Matt was integral to arguably one of England’s greatest Ashes tours down under, claiming 23 catches in the series including an Ashes-record-equalling six in the first innings at Melbourne. With the bat, he scored his first century against Australia in the fifth and final Test from 109 balls, the fastest English Ashes century since Ian Botham’s 118 at Old Trafford in 1981.

The award of a benefit is proof of Matt’s loyalty to Sussex CCC as well as the honour and dignity he has shown throughout. Matt has always shown commitment to charitable causes which is a focal point of his benefit year.