Peter Connell
Encyclopedia
Peter Connell is a New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

er-born Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

er. An opening bowler, he made his debut for Ireland in 2008, aged 26. He took part in Ireland's successful campaign in the 2007–08 ICC Intercontinental Cup
2007-08 ICC Intercontinental Cup
The 2007-08 ICC Intercontinental Cup was the fourth edition of the ICC Intercontinental Cup tournament, an international first class cricket tournament between nations who have not been awarded Test status by the International Cricket Council. The first fixtures were played in June 2007, and the...

. Connell has also represented Ireland in One Day Internationals (ODIs) and Twenty20 International
Twenty20 International
A Twenty20 International is a form of cricket which is played over 20 overs per side between two national cricket teams. The game is played under the rules of Twenty20 cricket...

s (T20Is).

Breakthrough

Peter Connell made his Twenty20
Twenty20
Twenty20 is a form of cricket, originally introduced in England for professional inter-county competition by the England and Wales Cricket Board , in 2003. A Twenty20 game involves two teams, each has a single innings, batting for a maximum of 20 overs. Twenty20 cricket is also known as T20 cricket...

 debut on 27 June 2008 in a match for Ireland against Bangladesh A. His three overs conceded twenty runs for no wickets and he opened the bowling with Thinus Fourie
Thinus Fourie
Marthinus Jacobus Fourie is a South African-born Irish cricketer. He is a right-handed batsman and a right-arm medium-pace bowler. He has played in the Ireland A cricket team since 2004, when he played for the first time against Marylebone Cricket Club...

. Connell made his first-class
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 debut for Ireland on 9 July 2008 in a match against the Netherlands as part of the 2007–08 ICC Intercontinental Cup
2007-08 ICC Intercontinental Cup
The 2007-08 ICC Intercontinental Cup was the fourth edition of the ICC Intercontinental Cup tournament, an international first class cricket tournament between nations who have not been awarded Test status by the International Cricket Council. The first fixtures were played in June 2007, and the...

. Opening the bowling with Thinus Fourie, Connell took a ten-wicket haul, finishing with figures of 10 wickets for 69 runs (10/69) in the match, and also took a hat-trick as Ireland won by an innings and 67 runs. He was the 16th player in the history of first-class cricket to take a hat-trick on debut and the first to do so in an international match. He is also the only player to have taken a first-class hat-trick for Ireland. With 30 first-class wickets for Ireland, Connell is the 16th highest wicket-taker for Ireland. In the 2007–08 ICC Intercontinental Cup, Connell was Ireland's leading wicket-taker for the tournament. His haul of 28 wickets from 5 matches, at an average of 11.67, was also the fourth highest total of wickets for that year's tournament and was the best average for bowlers with 10 wickets or more.

Ireland played in the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifiers
2009 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier
-Group B:---------Semi-finals:-----Finals:---------External links:* from Cricinfo* from CricketArchive* from CricketEurope...

 in August 2008. On 2 August, the team played their maiden T20 International, beating Scotland by four wickets; Connell made his T20I debut in the match, along with the rest of the Ireland team. Ireland progressed to the final and ended up sharing the trophy with the Netherlands as the match was rained off. Connell finished the tournament with 6 wickets from 4 matches, at an average of 6.00; he was Ireland's second leading wicket-taker – behind Andre Botha
Andre Botha (cricketer)
Andre Cornelius Botha is a former South African-born Irish cricketer. He played 55 times in all for Ireland, including the 2005 ICC Trophy and the European Championship in 2004 and 2006...

 with 8, and tied with Alex Cusack
Alex Cusack
Alex Richard Cusack is an Australian-born Irish cricketer. A club cricketer for Clontarf, Cusack was a carpenter by trade until he was granted a professional contract with the Irish Cricket Union in 2009. He is a middle-order right-handed batsman and bowls right-arm medium-fast. Cusack made his...

 who also had 6 – and was the equal fifth leading wicket-taker in the tournament.

2009

Ireland took part in the 2009 Friends Provident Trophy, losing five of their eight matches and two were rained off. In Ireland's only victory of the competition, Connell took career best figures of 5/19; it was his first five-wicket haul in one-day matches, beating his previous best bowling figures of 4/71. Ireland bowled Worcestershire
Worcestershire County Cricket Club
Worcestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Worcestershire...

 out for 58, their lowest ever one-day total, to win by 94 runs. Playing at New Road, Worcester
New Road, Worcester
New Road, Worcester, England, has been the home cricket ground of Worcestershire County Cricket Club since 1896. Immediately to the northwest is a road called New Road, part of the A44, hence the name.- Overview :...

, Ireland received a standing ovation as they walked off the pitch. Connell finished the competition with 10 wickets at an average of 21.30. In the 2009 ICC World Twenty20
2009 ICC World Twenty20
The 2009 ICC World Twenty20 was an international Twenty20 cricket tournament which took place in England in June 2009. It was the second ICC World Twenty20 tournament, following the inaugural event in South Africa in September 2007...

 in June 2009, Ireland progressed to the super eights. Despite helping Ireland qualify for the tournament the previous year, Connell played just one match in the tournament; opening the bowling, he bowled just one over for fourteen runs in a match Ireland lost to New Zealand.

Ireland's campaign in the 2009–10 ICC Intercontinental Cup, in pursuit of their fourth consecutive title in the competition, began in July 2009. Connell played in their first match, which was against Kenya; opening the bowling, he returned match figures of 2/97. Phil Simmons
Phil Simmons
Philip Veraint Simmons is a former skilled all-round cricketer who played as an opening batsman a useful bowler and a talented slip fielder.-Career:...

, Ireland's coach, was dissatisfied with Connell's performance and he was dropped for Ireland's next Intercontinental Cup match, which was against Scotland. Simmons cited "a drop in attitude" for Connell's lack of success and subsequent drop, adding "I need to see that he's back to where he was at towards the beginning of last year. I want people to realise just how nice it is to be involved with this squad and not take it for granted." Connell was given an opportunity to prove himself in an Ireland A match against Marylebone Cricket Club
Marylebone Cricket Club
Marylebone Cricket Club is a cricket club in London founded in 1787. Its influence and longevity now witness it as a private members' club dedicated to the development of cricket. It owns, and is based at, Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London NW8. MCC was formerly the governing body of...

.

External links

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