Regan West
Encyclopedia
Regan West is a former New Zealand
er-born Irish
cricket
er. He played for the Central Districts
and the Wellington
in the State Championship
in New Zealand. He bowled
left-arm, either fast-medium
or slow left arm orthodox
, batted left-handed. Despite being born in New Zealand, West qualified to play for Ireland in late 2008 and made his first appearance for the team the same year. In 2011 West, at the age of 31, announced his retirement due to an injury to his left shoulder; his last match for Ireland was in August 2009.
in a match against Northern Districts
. Though he did not bat, West was line up to come in at number seven
. He took 1 wicket in the match for 38 runs
(1/38), that of Matthew Hart
.
West's first taste of international cricket came in early 1998 when he represented New Zealand Under-19s in the Under-19 Cricket World Cup. He played all of his six Youth ODIs in the tournament. During the World Cup, he played alongside people such as James Franklin who went on to represent New Zealand in Tests
and ODIs. From the 1996/97 season to the 2004/05 season, West played 13 first-class matches for Central Districts, scoring 211 runs at an average of 16.23 with a highest score of 44, and took 25 wickets at an average
of 43.48. He also played one match for Wellington
in the 2000/01 season, but went wicketless in the match.
in 2003 and in 2004 he moved to Bangor
Cricket Club where he was the team's professional player for two seasons. He moved to Belfast
after marrying a girl from Northern Ireland. As early as 2005, when he finished top of the Northern Cricket Union batting averages and was named Northern Ireland Player of the Year, there was speculation that West might play for Ireland. At the end of the 2005 season, West moved back to Instonians where he was a local player rather than a professional, stating "I enjoyed my two years at Bangor and made a lot of friends there, however, now that I am working full time [in an accountants' firm] and living in Belfast it seemed a natural move to come back to Instonians". During his second stint with Instonians, West was occasionally suffered disciplinary problems, and on his departure from the club to join Civil Service North at the end of 2007, West said "I don't want to see another disciplinary committee room. I am sick of it and they are probably sick of me". On signing West, the Civil Service North captain said "In Regan, we have signed a quality batsman and a quality bowler – indeed he is two players in one".
At the end of the 2008 season, West qualified to play for Ireland through residency. It was his intention to play for Ireland, and although he was not certain of selection he worked in his fitness in the off-season in the hope of being picked. Soon after qualifying, he made his debut for the team 25 August 2008. The match, a One Day International against Kenya, was not only his maiden international match and his first for Ireland, but his list A debut. The match was abandoned due to the weather before Ireland had a chance to bowl. West made his first-class debut for Ireland on 3 October the same year; the match was against Namibia
in the 2007–08 ICC Intercontinental Cup. West did not bowl until Namibia's second innings and then only bowled two overs
as Ireland bowled Namibia out cheaply in each innings. He did not bowl in ODIs until his second ODI which was on 18 October 2008, again against Kenya. He took 2/35 from 10 overs and his maiden wicket was that of batsman Rakep Patel
.
In April 2009, West took his first five-wicket haul in one-day matches during the ICC World Cup Qualifier
. In a match against the Oman national cricket team on 2 April, West took 5/26 in Ireland's 116-run victory, beating his previous best bowling figures in one-day matches of 2/35. Ireland won the tournament and West finished with 14 wickets at an average
of 22.92 from 10 matches and was Ireland's second highest wicket-taker in the tournament. His haul of 7/88 in the first innings of the 2009 Intercontinental Cup clash against Scotland at Mannonfield in Aberdeen, is a record for Ireland in the competition and the best first-class return since Garfield Harrison
's 9/113 against the same opposition in Edinburgh in 1990. West was one of seven Ireland players to be nominated for the 2009 Associate and Affiliate Player of the Year (there were fourteen nominees in all), although he did not make the 4-man short-list. For the summer of 2010, West was unable to play due to injury, and in his absence George Dockrell
emerged as Ireland's premier spinner. West announced his retirement from international cricket in April 2011. His decision was caused by a serious injury to his left should; it was believed that he risked damaging it. Reflecting on his time playing for Ireland, West said "Being part of the Ireland team has been the highlight and most enjoyable time of my cricket career. I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to represent Ireland, and it is sad for me that that is now over."
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. He played for the Central Districts
Central Districts Stags
The Central Districts Stags are a New Zealand first class cricket team based in central New Zealand. It competes in the State Championship first class competition and the State Shield domestic one day competition...
and the Wellington
Wellington Firebirds
The Wellington Firebirds are one of six New Zealand first-class cricket teams that make up New Zealand Cricket.It is based in Wellington. It competes in the State Championship first class competition, the State Shield domestic one day competition and the State Twenty20 Cricket Tournament.The...
in the State Championship
State Championship
New Zealand has had a domestic first-class cricket championship since the 1906–07 season. It is currently known as the Plunket Shield, reintroducing the name used in the early stages for the 2009–10 season.-Plunket Shield:...
in New Zealand. He bowled
Bowling (cricket)
In the sport of cricket, bowling is the action of propelling the ball toward the wicket defended by a batsman. A player skilled at bowling is called a bowler; a bowler who is also a competent batsman is known as an all-rounder...
left-arm, either fast-medium
Fast bowling
Fast bowling, sometimes known as pace bowling, is one of the two main approaches to bowling in the sport of cricket. The other is spin bowling...
or slow left arm orthodox
Left-arm orthodox spin
Left-arm orthodox spin is a type of bowling in the sport of cricket.Left-arm orthodox spin is bowled by a left arm bowler using the fingers to spin the ball from right to left of the cricket pitch...
, batted left-handed. Despite being born in New Zealand, West qualified to play for Ireland in late 2008 and made his first appearance for the team the same year. In 2011 West, at the age of 31, announced his retirement due to an injury to his left shoulder; his last match for Ireland was in August 2009.
New Zealand
Although he would later qualify for Ireland and represent them in international cricket, West began his professional cricketing career in New Zealand, the country of his birth. He made his first-class debut on 22 March 1997, aged 17. In the match, he represented Central DistrictsCentral Districts Stags
The Central Districts Stags are a New Zealand first class cricket team based in central New Zealand. It competes in the State Championship first class competition and the State Shield domestic one day competition...
in a match against Northern Districts
Northern Districts Knights
The Yahoo!Xtra Northern Knights are one of six New Zealand first class cricket teams that make up New Zealand Cricket.It is based in the northern half of the North Island of New Zealand...
. Though he did not bat, West was line up to come in at number seven
Batting order (cricket)
In cricket, the batting order is the sequence in which batsmen play through their team's innings, there always being two batsmen taking part at any one time...
. He took 1 wicket in the match for 38 runs
Run (cricket)
In the sport of cricket, a run is the basic unit of scoring. Runs are scored by a batsman, and the aggregate of the scores of a team's batsmen constitutes the team's score. A batsman scoring 50 or 100 runs , or any higher multiple of 50 runs, is considered a particular achievement...
(1/38), that of Matthew Hart
Matthew Hart
Matthew Norman Hart is a New Zealand cricketer. Hart, a left-arm orthodox spinner, played in 14 Tests between 1994 and 1996, claiming 29 wickets including one five-wicket haul against South Africa...
.
West's first taste of international cricket came in early 1998 when he represented New Zealand Under-19s in the Under-19 Cricket World Cup. He played all of his six Youth ODIs in the tournament. During the World Cup, he played alongside people such as James Franklin who went on to represent New Zealand in Tests
Test cricket
Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...
and ODIs. From the 1996/97 season to the 2004/05 season, West played 13 first-class matches for Central Districts, scoring 211 runs at an average of 16.23 with a highest score of 44, and took 25 wickets at an average
Bowling average
Bowling average is a statistic measuring the performance of bowlers in the sport of cricket.A bowler's bowling average is defined as the total number of runs conceded by the bowlers divided by the number of wickets taken by the bowler, so the lower the average the better. It is similar to earned...
of 43.48. He also played one match for Wellington
Wellington Firebirds
The Wellington Firebirds are one of six New Zealand first-class cricket teams that make up New Zealand Cricket.It is based in Wellington. It competes in the State Championship first class competition, the State Shield domestic one day competition and the State Twenty20 Cricket Tournament.The...
in the 2000/01 season, but went wicketless in the match.
Ireland
West was a member of InstoniansInstonians
Instonians is the name of the umbrella organisation that incorporates rugby union, men's and ladies' hockey and cricket sections. There is also a golf society that plays under the Instonians name....
in 2003 and in 2004 he moved to Bangor
Bangor, County Down
Bangor is a large town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is a seaside resort on the southern side of Belfast Lough and within the Belfast Metropolitan Area. Bangor Marina is one of the largest in Ireland, and holds Blue Flag status...
Cricket Club where he was the team's professional player for two seasons. He moved to Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
after marrying a girl from Northern Ireland. As early as 2005, when he finished top of the Northern Cricket Union batting averages and was named Northern Ireland Player of the Year, there was speculation that West might play for Ireland. At the end of the 2005 season, West moved back to Instonians where he was a local player rather than a professional, stating "I enjoyed my two years at Bangor and made a lot of friends there, however, now that I am working full time [in an accountants' firm] and living in Belfast it seemed a natural move to come back to Instonians". During his second stint with Instonians, West was occasionally suffered disciplinary problems, and on his departure from the club to join Civil Service North at the end of 2007, West said "I don't want to see another disciplinary committee room. I am sick of it and they are probably sick of me". On signing West, the Civil Service North captain said "In Regan, we have signed a quality batsman and a quality bowler – indeed he is two players in one".
At the end of the 2008 season, West qualified to play for Ireland through residency. It was his intention to play for Ireland, and although he was not certain of selection he worked in his fitness in the off-season in the hope of being picked. Soon after qualifying, he made his debut for the team 25 August 2008. The match, a One Day International against Kenya, was not only his maiden international match and his first for Ireland, but his list A debut. The match was abandoned due to the weather before Ireland had a chance to bowl. West made his first-class debut for Ireland on 3 October the same year; the match was against Namibia
Namibia national cricket team
The Namibia cricket team is the team that represents the country of Namibia in international cricket matches. It is governed by Cricket Namibia, an associate member of the International Cricket Council since 1992 and became part of the High Performance Program in 2007. They took part in the 2003...
in the 2007–08 ICC Intercontinental Cup. West did not bowl until Namibia's second innings and then only bowled two overs
Over (cricket)
In the sport of cricket, an over is a set of six consecutive balls bowled in succession. An over is normally bowled by a single bowler. However, in the event of injury preventing a bowler from completing an over, it is completed by a teammate....
as Ireland bowled Namibia out cheaply in each innings. He did not bowl in ODIs until his second ODI which was on 18 October 2008, again against Kenya. He took 2/35 from 10 overs and his maiden wicket was that of batsman Rakep Patel
Rakep Patel
Rakep Rajendra Patel is a Kenyan international cricketer. He made his lone performance for the Kenya Select team in their inaugural season, and found himself called up to the national squad for their tour of Europe, including a tour of the Netherlands and the 2009 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier...
.
In April 2009, West took his first five-wicket haul in one-day matches during the ICC World Cup Qualifier
2009 ICC World Cup Qualifier
The 2009 ICC World Cup Qualifier was a cricket tournament that took place in April 2009 in South Africa. It was the final qualification tournament for the 2011 Cricket World Cup....
. In a match against the Oman national cricket team on 2 April, West took 5/26 in Ireland's 116-run victory, beating his previous best bowling figures in one-day matches of 2/35. Ireland won the tournament and West finished with 14 wickets at an average
Bowling average
Bowling average is a statistic measuring the performance of bowlers in the sport of cricket.A bowler's bowling average is defined as the total number of runs conceded by the bowlers divided by the number of wickets taken by the bowler, so the lower the average the better. It is similar to earned...
of 22.92 from 10 matches and was Ireland's second highest wicket-taker in the tournament. His haul of 7/88 in the first innings of the 2009 Intercontinental Cup clash against Scotland at Mannonfield in Aberdeen, is a record for Ireland in the competition and the best first-class return since Garfield Harrison
Garfield Harrison
Garfield David Harrison is one of four brothers to have played cricket for Ireland...
's 9/113 against the same opposition in Edinburgh in 1990. West was one of seven Ireland players to be nominated for the 2009 Associate and Affiliate Player of the Year (there were fourteen nominees in all), although he did not make the 4-man short-list. For the summer of 2010, West was unable to play due to injury, and in his absence George Dockrell
George Dockrell
George Henry Dockrell is an Irish cricketer. Dockrell is right-handed batsman and slow left-arm orthodox bowler who plays international cricket for Ireland after learning his cricket at Leinster Cricket Club, Dublin. He was a member of the class of 2010 in Gonzaga College, DublinDockrell has...
emerged as Ireland's premier spinner. West announced his retirement from international cricket in April 2011. His decision was caused by a serious injury to his left should; it was believed that he risked damaging it. Reflecting on his time playing for Ireland, West said "Being part of the Ireland team has been the highlight and most enjoyable time of my cricket career. I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to represent Ireland, and it is sad for me that that is now over."