Hamidullah Qadri (born 5 December 2000) is an Afghan-born English professional

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 who has played for

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ke ...

, Derbyshire and the England under-19 team. Born in Afghanistan and moving to England with his family at the age of 10, Qadri made his first-class cricket debut for Derbyshire in June 2017, becoming the first player born in 2000 to appear in the County Championship and Derbyshire's youngest ever first-class player.

Early life

Hamidullah Qadri was born in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on 5 December 2000. When he was aged one, his father left to find work in England due to the War in Afghanistan. The rest of the family were only able to follow and be reunited when Qadri was 10. Having been unfamiliar with cricket in Kandahar, Qadri developed an interest in the sport once the family had settled in Derby, learning about spin bowling from watching videos of famous players. At the age of 12, he was playing first team cricket for Alvaston & Boulton Cricket Club in the Derbyshire Premier Cricket League, alongside former New Zealand player

Iain O'Brien Iain Edward O'Brien (born 10 July 1976) is a former New Zealand cricketer, who played 22 Tests, 10 ODIs and 4 T20Is. A pace bowler, he took 73 test wickets with best figures of 6 for 75 against West Indies in 2008. He played first class cricke ...

. O'Brien nicknamed Qadri "The Magician" and became the youngster's mentor.

Career

Having developed through the Derbyshire Academy, Qadri made his

List A List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numbe ...

debut for the county against

South Africa A The South Africa A cricket team is a national cricket team representing South Africa. It is the second-tier of international South African cricket, below the full South Africa national cricket team. Matches played by South Africa A are not Test ...

at Derby on 29 May 2017. He made his first-class debut for Derbyshire against

Glamorgan , HQ = Cardiff , Government = Glamorgan County Council (1889–1974) , Origin= , Code = GLA , CodeName = Chapman code , Replace = * West Glamorgan * Mid Glamorgan * South Glamorgan , Motto ...

Sophia Gardens, Cardiff Sophia Gardens ( cy, Gerddi Sophia) is a public park in Riverside, Cardiff, Wales, on the west bank of the River Taff. International test cricket matches and county cricket matches are held in the Sophia Gardens cricket ground, the home of ...

, in the

2017 County Championship The 2017 County Championship (known for sponsorship reasons as the 2017 Specsavers County Championship), was the 118th cricket County Championship season. It was announced in March 2016 that the season would feature eight teams in Division One a ...

on 26 June 2017, taking five wickets in the second innings. On his debut, he became the first player to be born in the year 2000 to play in the County Championship and the youngest to represent Derbyshire in a first-class match. He made his Twenty20 debut for Derbyshire in the 2017 NatWest t20 Blast against Lancashire on 16 July 2017. Qadri was added to England's under-19 squad in July 2017 for their matches against India. He was later named in the England Young Lions squad to play a tri-series against South Africa and Namibia as a warm-up for the 2018 Under-19 World Cup. In September 2019, Qadri joined

ahead of the 2020 season.Hogwood C (2019
Kent sign off-spinner Hamidullah Qadri from Derbyshire
'' Kent Online'', 24 September 2019. Retrieved 24 September 2019.Hamidullah Qadri: Kent sign Derbyshire & England U19 off-spinner on three-year contract
BBC Sport, 24 September 2019. Retrieved 24 September 2019. The following month, he was named in the England under-19 cricket team's squad for a 50-over tri-series in the Caribbean. In December 2019, he was named in England's squad for the

2020 Under-19 Cricket World Cup The 2020 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup was an international limited-overs cricket tournament that was held in South Africa from 17 January to 9 February 2020. It was the thirteenth edition of the Under-19 Cricket World Cup, and the second to be ...

. Qadri left Kent at the end of his contract in October 2024.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Qadri, Hamidullah 2000 births Living people English cricketers Derbyshire cricketers Kent cricketers Afghan emigrants to England Sportspeople from Kandahar Cricketers from Derby English people of Afghan descent Afghan refugees