Jacob Timothy Ball (born 14 March 1991) 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 striki ...

er. Ball is a right-handed

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, the ...

who bowls right-arm fast-medium pace. He was born in

Mansfield Mansfield is a market town and the administrative centre of Mansfield District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the largest town in the wider Mansfield Urban Area (followed by Sutton-in-Ashfield). It gained the Royal Charter of a market tow ...

, Nottinghamshire, England and educated at the Meden School in Market Warsop. On 14 July 2016 he made his

Test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film), ...

debut for England against Pakistan. His uncle, Bruce French, also played Test cricket for

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and was chosen to present Ball with his England cap before his Test debut in July 2016.

Under-19s Career

Ball made his debut for England Under-19s in July 2010, playing two Youth

matches against Sri Lanka Under-19s at the

County Ground, Northampton The County Ground is a cricket venue on Wantage Road in the Abington area of Northampton, England. It is home to Northamptonshire County Cricket Club, and was used by Northampton Town F.C. from 1897 to 1994. Cricket Northamptonshire played t ...

and

North Marine Road Ground, Scarborough North Marine Road Ground, formerly known as Queen's, is a cricket ground in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England. It is the home of Scarborough Cricket Club which hosts the Scarborough Festival and the Yorkshire County Cricket Club plays a se ...

. It was during this series that he made his only Youth

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 ...

appearance at Fenner's, Cambridge and his only Youth

Twenty20 International A Twenty20 International (T20I) is a form of cricket, played between two of the international members of the International Cricket Council (ICC), in which each team faces a maximum of twenty overs. The matches have top-class status and are the ...

appearance at the Riverside Ground, Chester-le-Street.

Domestic career

Ball made his debut for

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

in a

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 ...

match in the 2009 Pro40 against

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

in what was his only appearance that season. He was notably West Indian

Dwayne Smith Dwayne Romel Smith (born 12 April 1983) is a former Barbadian international cricketer who has represented the West Indies in all three formats of the game. An all-rounder, he is known as an aggressive and powerful right-handed batsman, bowls m ...

's hat-trick wicket in this match. He next appeared for Nottinghamshire in the 2010 season in the

2010 Clydesdale Bank 40 The 2010 Clydesdale Bank 40 tournament was the inaugural ECB 40 limited overs cricket competition for the English and Welsh first-class counties. In addition to the 18 counties, Scotland and the Netherlands took part, as well as the Unicorns, a ...

against

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...

, again his only appearance in that season. In the 2011 season, he made his first-class debut in the season starting

Champion County match The Champion County match is a cricket match, traditionally played between the winner of the previous season's County Championship, and the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). The match was played at Lord's Cricket Ground for many seasons, but from 201 ...

against the

Marylebone Cricket Club Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influence ...

at the

Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium The Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium ( ar, ملعب زايد للكريكت) is a cricket ground located in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The stadium cost $23 million to build and was opened in May 2004, with its inaugural first-class match bein ...

Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi (, ; ar, أَبُو ظَبْيٍ ' ) is the capital and second-most populous city (after Dubai) of the United Arab Emirates. It is also the capital of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the centre of the Abu Dhabi Metropolitan Area. ...

. He bowled five wicketless overs in the Marylebone Cricket Club's first-innings, while in Nottinghamshire's first-innings he was dismissed for 4 by

Hamid Hassan Hamid Hassan ( ps, ; born 1 June 1987) is an Afghan cricketer. He is a right-arm fast bowler and a right-handed batsman who mainly plays as a bowler. He made his international debut for Afghanistan in April 2009. Early life and career Hassan ...

. In the Marylebone Cricket Club's second-innings, he ended with figures of 3/72 from 16 overs. He ended Nottinghamshire's second-innings unbeaten on zero, with Nottinghamshire losing the match by 174 runs. Though this was his only first-class appearance that season, he did make five further List A appearances for the county. To date, he has taken a total of 6 wickets in these matches, which have come at an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

of 42.33, with best figures of 3/32, while with the bat he has scored 41 runs in five innings at a

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

of 20.50, with a high score of 19

not out In cricket, a batter is not out if they come out to bat in an innings and have not been dismissed by the end of an innings. The batter is also ''not out'' while their innings is still in progress. Occurrence At least one batter is not out at t ...

. He also made a single

Twenty20 Twenty20 (T20) is a shortened game format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two teams have a single innin ...

appearance 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 Lancashi ...

in the

Friends Provident t20 The T20 Blast, currently named the Vitality Blast for sponsorship reasons, is a professional Twenty20 cricket competition for English and Welsh first-class counties. The competition was established by the England and Wales Cricket Board (E ...

Old Trafford Old Trafford () is a football stadium in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, and the home of Manchester United. With a capacity of 74,310 it is the largest club football stadium (and second-largest football stadium overall after Wemb ...

. In February 2022, he was retained by

Welsh Fire Welsh Fire ( cy, Tân Cymreig) are a franchise 100-ball cricket side based in the city of Cardiff. The team represents the Historic counties of England, historic counties of Glamorgan, Gloucestershire and Somerset in the newly founded competiti ...

for the 2022 season of The Hundred.

International career

In May 2016, he received his maiden call to play for

England national cricket team The England cricket team represents England and Wales in international cricket. Since 1997, it has been governed by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), having been previously governed by Marylebone Cricket Club (the MCC) since 1903. Engla ...

against

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

for the opening match at

Headingley Headingley is a suburb of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, approximately two miles out of the city centre, to the north west along the A660 road. Headingley is the location of the Beckett Park campus of Leeds Beckett University and Headingle ...

. Ball was not selected for the final XI, but did make his Test debut two months later, in the first Test against Pakistan at Lord's. Ball took figures of 1-51 in Pakistan’s first innings, but failed to take a wicket in the second innings. Pakistan went on to win the match by 75 runs. In his debut ODI, Ball took figures of 5-51 to help England win the first match by 21 runs. In doing so he became the first English player to take a five wicket haul on their ODI debut. In the second ODI, he finished with 2-44, but England lost by 34 runs to leave the series tied at 1-1. In the final match of the series, Ball did not take a wicket a finished with 0-44, but England won the match by 4 wickets to win the series 2-1. Ball played in the fourth Test match against India, with England already 2-0 down in the series. He took 1-47 in India’s first innings, as England lost the match by an innings and 36 runs. He kept his place for the final Test of the series, and took figures of 0-93 as India scored 759/7 and won the match by an innings and 75 runs, losing the series 4-0. In the first ODI against India Ball took figures of 3-67 as England lost by three wickets. In the second match he took 0-80 as India posted 381/6 and England lost by 15 runs. In the third ODI he took 2-56 as England won by 5 runs. In June 2018, he was named in England's

(T20I) squad for the series against India. He made his T20I debut for England on 6 July 2018.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ball, Jake 1991 births Living people Sportspeople from Mansfield Cricketers from Nottinghamshire English cricketers England Test cricketers England One Day International cricketers England Twenty20 International cricketers Nottinghamshire cricketers Cricketers who have taken five wickets on One Day International debut Welsh Fire cricketers Sydney Sixers cricketers