Shamarh Shaqad Joshua Brooks (born 1 October 1988) is a Barbadian international

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 str ...

er who plays international cricket for

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

and plays domestic cricket for

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate) ...

. He is a right-handed batsman who occasionally bowls leg-spin and mainly plays as a batsman. He made his international debut for the West Indies in August 2019.

Early and domestic career

Brooks was seen as a cricket prodigy in his teenage years. He played for the

West Indies under-19 cricket team The West Indies under-19 cricket team represents the countries of Cricket West Indies in international under-19 cricket. The West Indies is one of only five teams to participate in every edition of the Under-19 Cricket World Cup, along with Eng ...

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 ...

, made his

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officia ...

debut for

in 2007 and captained the West Indies in the

2008 Under-19 Cricket World Cup The 2008 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup was held in Malaysia from 17 February 2008 to 2 March 2008. The opening ceremony took place on 15 February 2008. The final was played between South Africa and India, which India won by 12 runs on the Duckw ...

. He remained in the Barbados national team for several years, but never realized his full potential and after a particularly bad year in 2012, scoring just 76 runs at an average of 8.44, he was dropped from the national team. Brooks didn't play another first-class match until 2015, but immediately upon his return he scored his maiden first-class century against the

Windward Islands french: Îles du Vent , image_name = , image_caption = ''Political'' Windward Islands. Clockwise: Dominica, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada. , image_alt = , locator_map = , location = Caribbean Sea No ...

. Over the next five years, he scored 3091 runs at an average of 38.63, including five centuries and 20 half-centuries. Brooks began to make steps towards Test cricket by captaining unofficial Test matches for the West Indies' second team, West Indies A, from 2016. This culminated in the West Indies A series against

India A The India A cricket team is a national cricket team representing India. It is the second-tier of Indian international cricket, below the full India national cricket team. The team is currently captained by Priyank Panchal in first-class cricket a ...

in England in 2018, where he scored 91 in the first match and 121

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 ...

in the second match to finish as the highest run-scorer for the series.

Twenty20 franchise cricket

Brooks played for the St Kitts & Nevis Patriots in the

Caribbean Premier League The Caribbean Premier League (abbreviated to CPL or CPLT20) is an annual Twenty20 cricket tournament held in the Caribbean. It was founded by Cricket West Indies in 2013 to replace the Caribbean Twenty20 as the premier Twenty20 competition in ...

, the top-level Twenty20 league in the West Indies, for two seasons in

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and

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. He played 4 matches in each season, and across them both scored 119 runs at an average of 23.80 with a strike-rate of 120.20.

International career

In January 2019, Brooks was named in the West Indies'

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), ...

squad for their series against England as a reward for his first-class form, but he did not play. He then captained West Indies A in another series against India A in July and August 2019. Initially he was only meant to captain the final of three unofficial Test matches, with

Kraigg Brathwaite Kraigg Clairmonte Brathwaite (born 1 December 1992) is a Barbadian cricketer who captains the West Indies in Test cricket. He bats right-handed and occasionally bowls right arm off break. On 6 November 2011, he became only the second West India ...

captaining the first two, but after an injury to Brathwaite, he stepped in to captain the first two matches as well. Brooks led from the front with half centuries in both of the first two matches, He was then again named in the West Indies' Test squad, this time for their series against India. Brooks made his Test debut for the West Indies against

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

on 22 August 2019. In November 2019, in the one-off Test against Afghanistan, Brooks scored his first century in Test cricket, with 111 runs. In June 2020, Brooks was named in the West Indies' Test squad, for their series against England. The Test series was originally scheduled to start in May 2020, but was moved back to July 2020 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. In November 2021, Brooks was named in the West Indies' One Day International (ODI) squad for their series against Pakistan. He made his

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 ...

(T20I) debut on 13 December 2021, for the West Indies against

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

. In December 2021, he was named in the West Indies' ODI squad for their series against Ireland. He made his ODI debut on 8 January 2022, for the West Indies 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 4 June 2022, in the third and final match of the series against the Netherlands, Brooks scored his first century in ODI cricket, with 101

. In December 2022, Brooks replaced

Nkrumah Bonner Nkrumah Eljego Bonner (born 23 January 1989) is a Jamaican cricketer who plays international cricket for the West Indies. An occasional leg spin bowler and top order right-hand batsman, Bonner made his first-class cricket debut for Jamaica again ...

as a concussion substitute on day 3 of the first Test of West Indies tour of Australia.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Brooks, Sharmarh 1988 births Living people West Indies Test cricketers West Indies One Day International cricketers West Indies Twenty20 International cricketers Barbadian cricketers Barbados cricketers People from Saint Michael, Barbados St Kitts and Nevis Patriots cricketers