Interesting journey of Gary Ballance who played for both England and Zimbabwe

Gary Ballance was born on November 22, 1989, in Zimbabwe. He played for Zimbabwe at the Under-19 level before moving to England in 2006. Ballance made his List A debut for Derbyshire against West Indies A on August 6, 2006. Upon the advice of England great Geoffrey Boycott, Ballance joined the Yorkshire Academy in 2008.

He became a regular member of the Yorkshire club since getting featured in their first team in 2011.

Ballance pushed his case for selection into England’s senior national team after compiling record 1251 runs at the 2013 County Championship.

He considers India legend Sachin Tendulkar as his icon.

Ballance made his international debut for England in an ODI game against Ireland on September 03, 2013.

A few months later, in January 2014, the left-handed batter played his maiden Test against Australia in Sydney.

He had a promising start to his Test career as in his first ten matches, Ballance scored 1017 runs in 17 innings at an average of 67.93 that, put him behind only Sir Donald Bradman in the list of batters with both 1000+ test runs and an average of above 60.

In November 2014, he won the ICC Men’s Emerging Cricketer of the Year award.

In 2015, Ballance became the third fastest England batter to reach 1,000 Test runs, which he achieved during the 2nd Test against West Indies.

The opening batter was named Cricketer of the Year in the 2015 edition of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack.

His career then failed to take off due to inconsistent performances, and he couldn’t cement his place in the national side.

Ballance tied the knot with Alex, who works as a speech and language therapist, in December 2018.

Following an investigation into racism at Yorkshire County Cricket Club in 2022, he admitted using racial slurs at fellow player Azaam Rafique and was suspended from selection by ECB.

In February 2023, Ballance played his first Test match for Zimbabwe after previously playing 23 Tests for England.

The cricketer then moved back to Zimbabwe and relaunched his career to become one of the very few cricketers to represent two countries in the international arena.

Ballance smashed a century against West Indies, which made him only the second person to score a Test match ton for two different countries, after Kepler Wessels.

On April 19, 2023, Ballance announced his retirement from all forms of cricket.

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April 21, 2023 at 03:26PM