Educated at Magdalen College School in Oxford, he played Minor Counties cricket for Oxfordshire from 1959, and he took four Somerset wickets in the 1961 Minor Counties Championship challenge match, which was won by Somerset's second eleven.
[2] The following season, 1962, he joined Somerset, playing mostly second eleven cricket for the next four summers after the end of the university term, and appearing only twice in the county's first team.
[3] Playing in just six matches because of examinations, Martin took only nine first-class wickets in what Wisden Cricketers' Almanack declared was a "depressing" season.
He continued to play second eleven cricket for Somerset until the end of the 1966 season and made one fleeting appearance six years later for Berkshire in the Minor Counties.
Martin became a schoolmaster, teaching at Wellington College in Berkshire from 1966 until he retired as deputy head in 2002.