Neil Clifford Saker (born 20 September 1984) is a former 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 who played for

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

. He is a right-hand batsman and right-arm medium pace bowler. In July 2003 Saker made his first-class debut against India A, he scored 5 and bowled 15 wicketless overs. In September of the same season he made his county cricket debut against

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, his maiden first-class wicket being that of

Alastair Cook Sir Alastair Nathan Cook (born 25 December 1984) is an English cricketer who plays for Essex County Cricket Club, and played for England in all international formats from 2006 to 2018. A former captain of the England Test and One-Day Intern ...

. At the end of the season he became the first Surrey Academy player to sign a full-time professional contract with the county. After a season in the second team, Saker was used frequently in the first team in 2005 although twelve of his thirteen appearances came in the one-day format. He was given more first-class opportunities in 2006 and 2007 playing a total of 15 matches, taking 29 wickets at an average of 45.03. After playing a single one-day match in 2008 he was released at the end of the season. During 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 ...

domestic limited overs competition, Saker was added to the Unicorns squad to play against the regular first-class counties. The Unicorns were initially made up of 15 former county cricket professionals and 6 young cricketers looking to make it in the professional game.Cricinfo staff
Unicorns name squad for Clydesdale Bank 40
13 April 2010,

Cricinfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...

. Retrieved on 2 May 2010. He appeared for Unicorns again in 2011 and also played for

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 ...

in four first-class matches in the same season, but did not win a long-term contract.

References

External links

*
Surrey County Cricket Club player profile
1984 births Living people English cricketers Surrey cricketers Unicorns cricketers Kent cricketers Shropshire cricketers People from Tooting English cricketers of the 21st century {{england-cricket-bio-1980s-stub