Luke James Wright (born 7 March 1985) is an English former

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 was a right-handed batsman and a right-arm medium bowler. Wright joined Sussex in 2004, having started his career at Leicestershire. He was named in England's squad for the Under-19 World Cup in 2004, and joined the International

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 ...

squad for the

2007 Twenty20 World Championship The 2007 ICC World Twenty20 was the inaugural Twenty20 International cricket world championship, contested in South Africa from 11 to 24 September 2007. Twelve teams took part in the thirteen-day tournament—the ten Test-playing nations and the ...

in September 2007. He made his One Day International debut on 5 September 2007 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 ...

. In November 2022, he became a selector the England men's team, announcing his retirement from playing at the same time.

County career

Wright hit a century on debut for Sussex, and has won the Denis Compton medal on three separate occasions during his domestic career.Luke Wright
at Cricinfo retrieved 3 September 2007 On 26 June 2007 he smashed his maiden domestic Twenty20 Cup century, scoring 103 from only 45 balls, including 11 fours and six sixes before being bowled by

Yasir Arafat Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf al-Qudwa al-Husseini (4 / 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), popularly known as Yasser Arafat ( , ; ar, محمد ياسر عبد الرحمن عبد الرؤوف عرفات القدوة الحسيني, Mu ...

in Sussex's 7 wicket win over

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 ...

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of ...

. Although Sussex were defeated in the semi-finals, Wright ended up as the highest run scorer of the competition.Luke Wright
at the ECB retrieved 3 September 2007 Wright had success in the longer one day formats, hitting 125 against

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

from 73 deliveries. In April 2008, Wright played for 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 ...

(MCC) at the opening match of the 2008 county season. Making 15 in the first innings while Sussex were bowled out for 171, he hit a quickfire 155* from 185 deliveries, with 21 fours and three sixes, during a rain-interrupted second innings. In May 2008 he was selected for the England Lions team to face the touring New Zealand side at the beginning of the latter's tour of England. With the Lions struggling, Wright hit 120 off 131 deliveries to bring them to 280 all out, giving rise to speculation about his place in the national team.

England career

Wright represented

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 ...

at Under-17 level. In 2003 he travelled to Australia with the Under-19 team and took a hat-trick against

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

, finishing with match figures of 5/46. In February 2006 he toured the

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 ...

to bolster the England A team. In July 2007, he was selected in the preliminary 30-man England Squad for the

in September, having been the top domestic Twenty20 scorer with 346 runs that season, and on 6 August he was named in the final 15-man squad. On 3 September it was announced that he would also join the England ODI squad as a replacement for the injured

Ravi Bopara Ravinder Singh Bopara (born 4 May 1985) is an English cricketer who plays for Sussex County Cricket Club in one day cricket. Originally a top-order batsman, his developing medium pace bowling has made him a batting all rounder in the one day ...

and

Andrew Flintoff Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff (born 6 December 1977) is an English television and radio presenter and former international cricketer. Flintoff played all forms of the game and was one of the sport's leading all-rounders, a fast bowler, middle-ord ...

for the final two matches against

.''England call up Wright as cover''

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

retrieved 3 September 2007 On 5 September 2007 Wright made his One Day International debut against India at

The Oval The Oval, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Kia Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, located in the borough of Lambeth, in south London. The Oval has been the home ground of Surrey County Cricket Club since ...

, London; hitting a half century in a 106 run 6th wicket stand with

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...

batsmen Owais Shah. Wright was run out on 50, by a matter of inches after facing just 39 balls, and received a standing ovation. In his second match at Lords he was out for a second ball duck. He also took a good low catch to remove

Gautam Gambhir Gautam Gambhir (; born 14 October 1981) is an Indian politician and former cricketer, who has played all formats of the game. He is a current member of the Lok Sabha since 2019. He received the Padma Shri from the Government of India in 2019, t ...

. Wright was selected for the 2007 Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa, and played his first match on 13 September against

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...

, where he was out caught behind on this first ball. He then suffered a number of ducks and single figure scores during the tournament, batting at both number 3 and down in the lower order. Wright was selected for the 2008 Tour to New Zealand, and after impressing with both bat and ball in the two practice matches, he was selected to play in three of the five matches. In the ODI series, which England went on to lose, Wright hit 71 runs at 35.5 and sent down five overs at the cost of 28 runs. These overs included the final over of a tied-ODI, where New Zealand needed seven to win and only managed six from Wright's bowling. After this, he continued to be a regular member of England's Twenty20 and ODI squads, playing in home series against New Zealand and South Africa in 2008, although he was never assured of a place in the starting XI and his place in the batting order was uncertain. In the autumn of 2009, he played against Australia, in a 6–1 loss, and in a surprisingly successful run at the ICC Champions Trophy, which was held in South Africa, where England beat the hosts and Sri Lanka before being thrashed by 9 wickets against Australia in the semi-finals (in which Wright scored 49, putting on a century partnership with

Tim Bresnan Timothy Thomas Bresnan (born 28 February 1985) is an English former first-class cricketer, who last played for Warwickshire. He was a fast-medium bowler who had ability with the bat. Bresnan won the NBC Denis Compton Award in 2002 and 2003. I ...

). In that match he and Bresnan set the highest 7th wicket partnership in ICC Champions Trophy history (107) Following the Champions Trophy, in October 2009 Wright was called up to England's

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 the first time for the winter tour of South Africa. His inclusion was to fill the all-rounder's spot vacated by

's retirement after the

2009 Ashes The 2009 Ashes series was that year's edition of the long-standing and storied cricket rivalry between England and Australia, and was part of the Australian cricket tour of England in 2009. Starting on 8 July 2009, England and Australia played fi ...

Geoff Miller Geoffrey Miller, (born 8 September 1952) is an English former cricketer, who played in 34 Test matches and 25 One Day Internationals for the England cricket team between 1976 and 1984. He played for Derbyshire from 1973 to 1986, captaining t ...

, England's chairman of selectors, said "The retirement of Andrew Flintoff has created a vacancy for an all-rounder in the squad and while we do not see Luke Wright as a like for like replacement for Andrew, we are excited by the way in which his all-round game continues to develop and believe he can make an impact at Test level". However he did not play and his career ended without playing test cricket. Wright was very much a regular of the England one day side, however, and was a member of the England Twenty20 squads for both the 2009 and 2010 tournaments where he was a member of the winning England team.

Personal life

Wright attended

Ratcliffe College Ratcliffe College is a coeducational Catholic independent boarding and day school near the village of Ratcliffe on the Wreake, Leicestershire, approximately from Leicester, England. The college, situated in of parkland on the Fosse Way about ...

in Ratcliffe on the Wreake, Leicestershire and made his first-class debut for Leicestershire at age 18. Wright met his wife Rebecca whilst on tour in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

in 2009. They got engaged whilst he was on a South African tour on Christmas Eve 2010 and married on 30 September 2011. At 3:30pm on 27 November 2011, Luke's first child was born, Joshua James, Luke soon posted a picture of him on his Twitter page. He is a supporter of

Newcastle United F.C. Newcastle United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Newcastle upon Tyne, that plays in the Premier League – the top flight of English football. The club was founded in 1892 by the merger of Newcastle East End ...

T20 franchise career

In the 2011/2012 Australian season, Wright joined the

Melbourne Stars The Melbourne Stars are an Australian Twenty20 franchise cricket team, based in Melbourne, Victoria that competes in Australia's Twenty20 competition, the Big Bash League. The Stars wear a green uniform and play their home matches at the Melb ...

in the inaugural Big Bash League. On 9 January, Wright smashed 117 from 60 deliveries including nine sixes and eight fours against the Hobart Hurricanes at Blundstone Arena. This was the highest score in Australian domestic Twenty20 up until D’Arcy Short's 122* in BBL 07. In the same match, Wright and teammate Rob Quiney set up a 172-run opening stand which is the highest for any wicket in a domestic Twenty20 match. In the inaugural season of the

Pakistan Super League The Pakistan Super League (PSL) is a professional Twenty20 cricket league contested during February and March of every year by six teams representing six cities of Pakistan. The league was founded on 9 September 2015 with five teams by the Paki ...

in February 2016, Luke Wright played for Quetta Gladiators. He was retained for the 2nd season which started from 9 February 2017. In September 2018, he was named in Paktia's squad in the first edition of the

Afghanistan Premier League The Afghanistan Premier League (APL) ( ps, ; fa, ), officially Gulbahar Afghanistan Premier League for sponsorship reasons, is a Twenty20 cricket franchise tournament run by the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB), held in the United Arab Emirat ...

tournament. In July 2019, he was selected to play for the Belfast Titans in the inaugural edition of the Euro T20 Slam cricket tournament. However, the following month the tournament was cancelled. In April 2022, he was bought by the Northern Superchargers for the 2022 season of The Hundred. He announced his retirement from all forms of cricket in November 2022.

England selector

In November 2022, Wright became a selector for the England men's team.

References

External links

Luke Wright
at the

England and Wales Cricket Board The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is the national governing body of cricket in England and Wales. It was formed on 1 January 1997 as a single governing body to combine the roles formerly fulfilled by the Test and County Cricket Board, ...

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, Luke 1985 births Living people People from Bottesford, Leicestershire People educated at Ratcliffe College English cricketers England One Day International cricketers England Twenty20 International cricketers Cricketers at the 2007 Cricket World Cup Cricketers at the 2011 Cricket World Cup Leicestershire Cricket Board cricketers Leicestershire cricketers Sussex cricketers Sussex cricket captains Wellington cricketers Melbourne Stars cricketers Pune Warriors India cricketers Dhaka Dynamites cricketers Abahani Limited cricketers Auckland cricketers Quetta Gladiators cricketers Rajshahi Kings cricketers