Craig McIntyre Wright (born 28 April 1974) is a Scottish former

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 striki ...

er. He was a big hitting right-handed middle order batsman and right-arm medium pace bowler. He was educated at

Kelvinside Academy Kelvinside Academy is an independent day school in Glasgow, Scotland, founded in 1878. It has a capacity of over 600 pupils and spans two years of Nursery, six years of Junior School (primary school), a transition year of Senior Preparatory, and ...

in Glasgow.

Career

Wright had represented

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

at both Under 16 and Under 19 level before making his senior debut in a match against

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

on 9 August 1997. He went on to play 194 times for Scotland, including the

2007 Cricket World Cup The 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup was the ninth Cricket World Cup, a One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament that took place in the West Indies from 13 March to 28 April 2007. There were a total of 51 matches played, three fewer than at the ...

, and 20/20 World Cup in 2007 & 2009. He overtook Greig Williamson in 2006 as the highest capped Scottish player. Career highlights include a hat trick against Denmark in 2004 and a man of the match performance to help Scotland upset Worcestershire in a 1998 NatWest series match. He was also Scotland's outstanding player of their first season in the English National Cricket League in 2003 (25 wickets at an average of 19.84) and topped the tournament bowling averages (16 wickets at 13.68) in Scotland's failed bid to qualify from the ICC World Cup qualifier in 2009 . In 2002 he was appointed captain of the national side, a role he kept until stepping down at the end of the 2007 World Cup. As captain he lifted the 2004 Intercontinental Cup and the 2005 ICC Trophy for Scotland as well as steering them to the final of the ICC World League Division 1 (which qualified the team for the 2007 20/20 World Cup). In total he captained Scotland a record 107 times. After being omitted from the Scottish side for the 1999 World Cup despite a strong showing the previous season, he had to wait until 2006 to make his

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...

debut. In his second ODI game, against the Netherlands, he hit Tim de Leede for six off the penultimate delivery to win the game. This effort was repeated against Ireland in the 2007 World League with Wright striking a six to level scores with two balls to go before hitting the winning boundary off the final delivery. Following Scotland's removal from the 2009 ICC Twenty20 Championship, Wright, then 35, announced his retirement. Off the field he juggled his playing career with the job of Cricket Scotland's Performance Development Manager, having previously served as their Development Officer and Marketing Manager. He refocused his career on this role following his retirement as a player. In April 2010 it was announced that Wright would be joining Edinburgh-based Watsonian Cricket Club after leaving Greenock. He captained an MCC team that toured

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in September–October 2011, playing 10 one-day matches.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, Craig Scotland One Day International cricketers Scottish cricket captains Scotland Twenty20 International cricketers Living people 1974 births Scottish cricketers People educated at Kelvinside Academy Cricketers at the 1998 Commonwealth Games Sportspeople from Paisley, Renfrewshire Scottish cricket coaches Coaches of the Scotland national cricket team Commonwealth Games competitors for Scotland