Roneel Magan Hira (born 23 January 1987) is a New Zealand

Twenty20 International cricket 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 ...

er who is a left-arm off spinner. His relaxed attitude to cricket and his bowling style have been compared to

Phil Tufnell Philip Clive Roderick Tufnell (born 29 April 1966) is a former English international cricketer and current television and radio personality. A slow left-arm orthodox spin bowler (cricket), bowler, he played in 42 Test cricket, Test matches and ...

. He was born in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

Domestic career

Hira made his debut for

in first-class,

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 ...

and

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 ...

matches in the 2006–07 season. He represented New Zealand in the

2006 Under-19 Cricket World Cup The 2006 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup was played in Sri Lanka from 2 to 15 February 2006. The final was played between Pakistan and India in Colombo, which Pakistan won by 38 runs, enabling them to become the first back-to-back champions of th ...

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 ...

. He last played a first-class game in March 2008, but has represented Auckland with more regularity in the limited-overs formats. Hira was a part of the Auckland 50-over and Twenty20 sides that won the New Zealand domestic titles in 2010–11. He subsequently travelled to India with the Auckland Aces as part of their unsuccessful campaign in the

Champions League Twenty20 The Champions League Twenty20, also referred to as the CLT20, was an annual international Twenty20 Cricket competition played between qualifying domestic teams from some major cricketing nations. The competition was launched in 2008 with the fi ...

, an international Twenty20 cricket competition between club teams from India, Australia, England, South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and West Indies. After three seasons as a contracted player for the Auckland Aces, Hira's domestic contract was not renewed for the 2011–12 season. Despite only receiving match payments, Hira was the bowling standout of the domestic Twenty20 competition in the 2011–12 season and was an integral part of Auckland's successful defence of the

HRV Twenty20 Cup The Men's Super Smash, currently named the Dream11 Super Smash for sponsorship purposes until 2026, is a men's domestic Twenty20 cricket competition in New Zealand. Since the 2018–19 season, the competition runs alongside the Women's Super Sma ...

. In an impressive campaign, he took 14 wickets at an average of 14.85 and, most importantly given the high-scoring Twenty20 format, conceded only 5.85 runs an over. Hira finished the Twenty-20 competition as the joint leading wicket-taker and impressed with his sharp fielding and his batting cameos lower down the order. On the back of this performance, Hira was the winner of the HRV Cup

MVP In team sports, a most valuable player award, abbreviated 'MVP award', is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particu ...

bowling rankings. His 76.06 MVP bowling points placed him well clear of the

Canterbury Wizards Canterbury is a first-class cricket team based in Canterbury, New Zealand. It is one of six teams that compete in senior New Zealand Cricket competitions and has been the second most successful domestic team in New Zealand history. They compete ...

Rob Nicol Robert James Nicol (born 28 May 1983 in Auckland) is a former New Zealand cricketer, who played all formats of the game. He is a right-handed opening batsman and bowled right arm off spin occasionally. Domestically, Nicol has played first-clas ...

who was second with 54.27; he got the HRV Cup MVP award for 2014.

International career

Hira was rewarded with selection in the New Zealand Twenty-20 squad for the 2012 series against Zimbabwe and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

."Zimbabwe in New Zealand 2011–12: Bates, Latham picked; Brendon McCullum to lead"
ESPNCricinfo. Retrieved 28 January 2012.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hira, Roneel 1987 births Living people New Zealand cricketers New Zealand Twenty20 International cricketers Auckland cricketers Canterbury cricketers Northern Districts cricketers New Zealand sportspeople of Indian descent North Island cricketers