Ryan Campbell

Ryan Campbell, born on February 7, 1972, is known for his high-octane game. The aggressive wicket-keeper batsman was a key member of the Western Australian setup in the 1990s.

In fact, Campbell forged a successful opening partnership with Michael Hussey and helped Western Australia to lift a couple of Sheffield Shield titles in 1998 and 1999, respectively. By the time he finished his career, he was ninth on the Pura Cup-Sheffield Shield list of Western Australian run-scorers with 5421 runs, and was fourth on the wicket-keeping dismissals table with 242 dismissals.

Unfortunately, he could play a mere two ODIs for Australia as had to fight for a place in the Australian side with the legendary wicket-keeper batsman Adam Gilchrist.

In 2008, he went on to play in the now defunct Indian Cricket League (ICL) for the Ahmedabad Rockets franchise and his career as a professional cricketer seemed to be over. His performances in the rebel league were impressive though as he finished the season with 237 runs in eight appearances at a strike rate of 160.13.

However, as the destiny would have it, he moved over to Hong Kong in 2012 to play for and coach the Kowloon Cricket Club and soon took over the role of the national team’s batting coach. Aged 44 years and 30 days, he wrote his name in the record books as the oldest T20 International debutant when he turned up at Nagpur to captain Hong Kong versus the UAE in the 2016 World T20, 14 years after he played his last ODI.

Campbell had an uncanny ability to play some innovative strokes and to encapsulate the point, back in 2002, he scooped Nuwan Zoysa twice to the fence while playing for Australia ‘A’. It later came to be known as the ‘Dilscoop’.