Laurie Evans

Primarily a limited-overs batsman, Laurie John Evans had dreams of becoming a scrumhalf and may have been posing alongside England's well-known Rugby player and Evans' classmate Danny Cipriani had he not switched his interest to cricket. A series of shoulder injuries put paid to Evans Rugby dreams, but that didn't stop from holding a bat and whacking the ball cleanly.

Beginning his career as a seamer who could bat, Evans was nurtured by Graeme Fowler at Durham University who reminded Evans of his strengths and later turned him into a flamboyant batsman at the academy. He scored an impressive hundred for Durham MCCU in his second match for them and displayed sparks of clean hitting throughout his stay. Later, he moved to Surrey seeking better opportunities, but the move didn't turn out as anticipated with competition for places getting incredibly tough.

After Surrey released him in 2010, Evans joined Warwickshire immediately and became a legend of sorts with the second elevens where he knocked over twenty hundreds after playing nearly 100 games during the period of 2010-13. That purple patch enabled an opportunity for Evans to represent the first elevens at Warwickshire, but he was soon found wanting against the short ball and eventually lost his Championship side place in 2014.

Although Evans produced some memorable white-ball performances at Warwickshire - match-winning 30-ball 53 in Natwest T20 Blast final in 2014, 15-ball 43 against Surrey in the Royal London One Day Cup the same year and et al. - his form faded soon after, ending his contract with the Birmingham side in 2016. He joined Sussex ahead of the 2017 season and had a decent run in limited overs whilst failing to seize the opportunities in Championship matches.

Evans' credentials as an explosive batter meant that he was in hot demand following the rise of franchise tournaments around the globe. He signed to play in the Afghanistan Premier League as early as 2018 and subsequently got contracts from the Bangladesh Premier League. He went on to play in the PSL, LPL, The Hundred and the BBL.