William Conrad Francis Smeed (born 26 October 2001) 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 str ...

er. He made his

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 inn ...

debut on 11 September 2020, for

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

in the

2020 T20 Blast The 2020 Vitality Blast was the 2020 season of the t20 Blast, a professional Twenty20 cricket league being played in England and Wales. It was the third season in which the domestic T20 competition, run by the England and Wales Cricket Board (E ...

. On 10 August 2022 he became the first player to score a century in The Hundred (101* from 50 balls) for Birmingham Phoenix vs Southern Brave. In November 2022, Smeed announced he was to give up red ball cricket to focus solely on the shorter forms of the game. Coming at such an early stage of his career, at the age of 21, some have seen the decision as being indicative of the decline of red ball cricket. Barney Ronay, in The Guardian, noted that Smeed “…who will make a wonderful living from being able to polo mallet sixes into the stands, has retired from red ball cricket having never played a game of red ball cricket, because, frankly, only one of these things looks like the future.”

Biography

Smeed was a prep school pupil at

Millfield School Millfield is a public school (English independent day and boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) located in Street, Somerset, England. It was founded in 1935. Millfield is a registered charity and is the largest co-educational boarding s ...

and played rugby, football, hockey, tennis and competed in the hurdles, as well as playing cricket. From ages 13 to 18 Smeed was educated at independent school

King's College, Taunton (Strong and faithful) , established = 1880 , closed = , type = Independent day and boarding , religious_affiliation = Church of England , president = , head_label ...

in Somerset, where he was a part of their cricket programme. He studied maths, further maths, chemistry and physics to A Level, achieving an A* in each subject. He is studying an undergraduate

Open University The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...

degree in maths and economics. In April 2022, he was bought by the

Birmingham Phoenix Birmingham Phoenix are a franchise 100-ball cricket side based in the city of Birmingham. The team represents the historic counties of Warwickshire and Worcestershire in the newly founded The Hundred competition, which began its inaugural se ...

for the 2022 season of The Hundred. He made his List A debut on 14 July 2022, for the England Lions during South Africa's tour of England.

References

External links

* 2001 births Living people English cricketers Somerset cricketers Cricketers from Cambridge People from Glastonbury People educated at King's College, Taunton Birmingham Phoenix cricketers Quetta Gladiators cricketers St Kitts and Nevis Patriots cricketers People educated at Millfield Preparatory School {{England-cricket-bio-2000s-stub