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LUKE WRIGHT
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uke Wright still looks like someone out of a teenage pop band but it will be ten years in September since he first made his mark on Sussex cricket.
In truth it was as something of a bit-part role during the greatest few days in the county’s history. Wright made his first-class debut in the Leicestershire side trounced by Sussex at Hove in 2003 when the county won the Championship for the first time. The following year Peter Moores brought him to Sussex and now Wright is part of the furniture at Hove, although these days it is rare for him to be in any place for more than a few weeks at a time. For Luke is the archetypal gun for hire in Twenty20, a format of the game that seemed tailor-made for his muscular talents from that
Australia’s Big Bash tournament before a quick stint in the Bangladesh equivalent for Dhaka. Then it was off to New Zealand where he helped England win the T20 series. After a few weeks at home, including a few days of pre-season at Hove, he was on his travels again to India to take part for the second time in the IPL for Pune Warriors. Since his recovery from knee surgery at the end of the 2011 season he seems to have taken his game to a new level. The ebullient stroke-play is what attracts potential suitors but he has become a better white-ball bowler in the past 18 months, safe in the knowledge that following knee surgery in the Autumn of 2011 his body isn’t going to let him down. There are plenty of people – not all of them from Sussex – who find it hard to believe that Matt Prior, the world’s best wicketkeeper-
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many superb one-day innings for Sussex, topped off by that brilliant century in a losing cause in the CB40 semi-final against Hampshire, would argue that he has moved his game on in the last 12 months and deserves another crack in England’s middle order this summer. More eye-catching domestic performances would help and so, no doubt, would a few in the IPL. Wright only played one game for Pune last year but he is one of only three England players in this year’s edition and, as the only one who is not centrally contracted, he is allowed to play in the whole six-week tournament from April 7 to May 27. “I’m looking forward to it because you are up against the best players in the world even if you tend to come across a lot of the same guys playing T20 these days,” he added. “I must have faced Alfonso Thomas on at least
“It is quite tough to get into our top order with Cook, Bell, Trott and KP but I’d love to come into the middle order if there’s no role for me at the top and obviously my bowling would help” June evening back in 2007 when he announced himself to the wider cricketing world with that blitzkrieg hundred against Kent at Canterbury. A few weeks later he was making his England debut and although there have been periods when he has been out of the side since he goes into this summer’s international series against New Zealand and Australia with 88 appearances to his name, 46 in ODIs and 42 in Twenty20. He will always be more than a footnote in English cricket history having been part of the side which won the T20 World Cup in 2010 and in Sri Lanka last September his 193 runs in five games was one of the better individual performances in a pretty toothless title defence by England. Already this year Wright has played T20 for Melbourne Stars in
batsman, doesn’t play limitedovers cricket for England. Wright hasn’t played an ODI for more than two years now and while his is happy to jet off around the globe (despite his aversion to flying he made 38 flights in 2012) to pick up T20 riches it is a means to an end in some ways.
three different continents! But I know that if I perform well in any competition wherever it is I will get noticed and that’s all I can do.”
“I have huge ambitions to get back into the one-day side,” he said. “It is quite tough to get into our top order with Cook, Bell, Trott and KP but I’d love to come into the middle order if there’s no role for me at the top and obviously my bowling would help. Every time I get the chance to push my case I will try and do so.” Those 46 ODIs to date have included just two fifties while his economy rate with the ball is 5.07. These are not statistics which are necessarily going to alert Andy Flower & co. but everyone who watched him last season play so
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