Mark Harold Alan Footitt (born November 25, 1985) is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 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. He is a right-handed batsman and a left arm fast bowler who is currently contracted to Derbyshire

Derbyshire County Cricket Club

Derbyshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the England and Wales domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Derbyshire...

.

Biography

Born in Nottingham

Nottingham

Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...

, Footitt was initially spotted as a 16-year-old, and impressed judges with his raw pace. Subsequently coached by Chris Tolley

Chris Tolley

Chris Tolley is a retired professional cricketer who played for Worcestershire and Nottinghamshire. In 2002 Tolley was appointed County Academy Director for Nottinghamshire.-External links:*...

, and mentored by Greg Smith and Ryan Sidebottom

Ryan Sidebottom

Ryan Jay Sidebottom is an English cricketer who plays domestic cricket for Yorkshire. He is a primarily a left-arm fast-medium bowler. Sidebottom played his first Test match in 2001 against Pakistan, but failed to take a wicket and was dropped for six years...

, on his first-class debut the seamer took 4/45 against Glamorgan

Glamorgan County Cricket Club

Glamorgan County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Glamorgan aka Glamorganshire . Glamorgan CCC is the only Welsh first-class cricket club. Glamorgan CCC have won the English County...

 and shared a 101 tenth-wicket partnership with Chris Read

Chris Read

Christopher Mark Wells Read is an English cricketer, a wicket-keeper who is the captain of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club...

.

This was followed by a call-up to the England Under-19 squad for the series against Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan cricket team

The Sri Lankan cricket team is the national cricket team of Sri Lanka. The team first played international cricket in 1926–27, and were later awarded Test status in 1981, which made Sri Lanka the eighth Test cricket playing nation...

 but after making just nine first-class appearances for Nottinghamshire, he was released in August 2009 and signed by Derbyshire in November 2009.

External links

• Mark Footitt at ECB