Ben James Phillips (born 30 September 1974) is an English

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

er who played for Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club until his release in 2013. He is a right-handed batsman and right-arm

fast-medium Fast bowling (also referred to as pace bowling) is one of two main approaches to bowling in the sport of cricket, the other being spin bowling. Practitioners of pace bowling are usually known as ''fast'' bowlers, ''quicks'', or ''pacemen''. T ...

pace bowler.

Career

Phillips began his career at

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, appearing for their Second XI regularly throughout the late 1990s. His made his

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officia ...

debut for the club against Sussex early in the 1996 season, taking four wickets in the match. He failed to impress during the following match against Leicestershire, taking no wickets, and only made one more first-class appearance in the season. Despite scoring his maiden first-class century in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

against

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...

and twice taking 5 wickets in an innings, he dropped out of the first-class game at the end of the 1998 season after 27 appearances for Kent. Between 1999 and 2001 he turned out regularly for Kent Second XI and played a spell of three one-day matches for the first team. He joined

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

in 2002 but it was not until 2004 that he became a regular member of the first team; he was awarded his

county cap In sport, a cap is a player's appearance in a game at international level. The term dates from the practice in the United Kingdom of awarding a cap to every player in an international match of rugby football and association football. In the ea ...

in 2005. In 53 first-class matches for Northamptonshire he averaged about 23 with the bat and about 31 with the ball. His highest first-class score for Northamptonshire was 90 against

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Av ...

in 2004 and his best bowling was 6/29 against

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...

in 2006. At the end of the 2006 season, he asked to be released from his contract at Northamptonshire, as his family had not settled in the area. He joined

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

the following season. Injury hampered his chances to make a serious impression at Somerset, and by late 2009 he was primarily considered a squad player, with Director of Cricket Brian Rose stating "[Somerset] need people of Ben's calibre to come into the side when it is weakened for any reason." He joined Nottinghamshire in 2011 and although injury disrupted his first season, he was a mainstay of their County Championship attack in 2012 taking 30 wickets at 27.10.

References

External links

*
Player profile: Ben Phillips
from Somerset County Cricket Club {{DEFAULTSORT:Phillips, Ben Kent cricketers Northamptonshire cricketers Somerset cricketers English cricketers 1974 births Living people NBC Denis Compton Award recipients Nottinghamshire cricketers