Matthew Boyce

Squad Number - 11

Player Sponsor - William Freer www.williamfreer.co.uk

Born - Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, August 13, 1985

Joined - Leicestershire 2005

Role - Left Hand Opening Batsman

Family -

Teams Represented - Leicestershire

Honours - Daily Mail Cup winner while at Twickenham playing rugby for Oakham School

Highlight of Career - First-class debut and one-day debut. Scoring a double century and playing for England Development Squad against Bangladesh in 2004

Players Admired - Justin Langer, Graham Thorpe, Mark Ramprakash, Paul Nixon

Relaxations - Relaxing in general!

A calm and unflustered left-handed opening batsman, Matthew Boyce has been a virtual ever-present at the top of the Leicestershire order in Championship cricket after making his breakthrough at the start of 2008. He has also made numerous one-day appearances and ended the 2009 season as captain of the team following Boeta Dippenaar’s departure to South Africa.

The 2008 season was his first full year at the club after completing his undergraduate degree in Management and Economics at Nottingham University and he went on to shine as an opening batsman.

Boyce made back-to-back half centuries in the first game against Middlesex and then registered his maiden first-class ton at Edgbaston in the second match. He went onto become the third highest run-scorer in the Championship behind HD Ackerman and Paul Nixon.

Although he did not kick on as much as he may have liked in 2009, he made a high-quality 98 at Canterbury in a great partnership with Nixon and has the potential to score extremely heavily for the Club. Boyce has also shown his quality in the one-day arena and can change his approach, given he has opened successfully in Twenty20 cricket as well as first-class cricket.

An excellent 80 against Hampshire Hawks in the FPT has been his best one-day knock to date and he also shared some good stands with Jim Allenby in last year’s Twenty20 Cup. The ability to change tack is a key one in the modern game and Boyce clearly has that quality.

The Leicestershire-born batter was handed his first team debut in testing circumstances in 2006 when he played against the Pakistan touring team in their opening match of their visit to England.

It was certainly a baptism of fire for the former Oakham School pupil as he came face to face with a pace attack of international quality, but he rose to the challenge and that grittiness has stood him in good stead in future years.

Spent the 2008 pre-season at the Darren Lehmann academy in Adelaide and was no doubt better for that experience. After a hard winter’s work, Boyce will be looking to have a prolific 2010 as he continues to progress in his career.

Boyce's career record at Leics (up to 2009 season):

MAG Boyce 2009 (74.93 kB)