Luke Wright

Luke Wright is an exciting all-rounder from England who was always in and around the England white-ball side in the late 2000s, until the early 2010s. The English veteran admired Jacques Kallis and Andrew Flintoff and slowly became a reliable player like his idols. Generally used as a change bowler, Wright has also been given the finisher’s role in limited-overs contests. After doing well in age-group cricket, Wright spent some at the National Academy, before going on to play for Sussex.

The Lincolnshire-born was handed his debut cap in a series against India. He made his ODI debut against India on September 5th, 2007, and announced his arrival at the international scene with a fifty on his debut. He then made his T20I debut the next week against Zimbabwe at Cape Town in the inaugural ICC World T20 and was dismissed on a duck.

Wright had few decent runs in the early part of his career but he further solidified his position in the squad after a successful T20 World Cup campaign in 2010. His reliability as an all-rounder saw him being included in the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup as a replacement for Andrew Flintoff who had retired in 2009. After a disappointing World Cup run, he started juggling in and out of the squad in the rebuilding phase of England Cricket and by 2015, Wright was completely sidelined from the playing XI.

Since making his debut in 2003, Wright has established himself as one of the most powerful hitters in world cricket and is the highest run-scorer in English T20 cricket. Wright has also represented Pune Warriors India in the Indian Premier League(IPL) in 2013 and Quetta Gladiators in Pakistan Super League(PSL) in 2016.  As an original Star, Englishman Wright has been adopted by Melbourne since the inaugural edition of the Big Bash League(BBL). He played every game for the Melbourne Stars in the 2016-17 edition of BBL, making a total of 262 for the season, the second-most for the team. Reaching his biggest knock of 62 off 47 balls in the game against the Sixers, Wright also managed an unbeaten 60 in his 50th game for the club against the Brisbane Heat.

The Grantham-based cricketer is the current captain of Sussex in T20 cricket and signed a contract extension in white-ball cricket until 2023. The club’s top run-getter in the 2020 T20 Vitality Blast, Wright has led his side to three back-to-back quarterfinals and has been a key cog of Sussex in limited-overs cricket for a long time.

(As of April 2021)