Darren Sammy follows in the footsteps of some of the legends of Caribbean cricket when he joins Nottinghamshire in May.
The 31 year old all-rounder, currently playing in the ICC Cricket World Cup, will add his name to a long line of outstanding West Indian players who have made their home at Trent Bridge.
Sammy, from St Lucia, will play in four matches in the NatWest T20 Blast competition and becomes the first West Indian international to turn out for the Outlaws since Darren Bravo made a handful of appearances at the end of 2011.
A lively right-arm medium pace bowler, hard-hitting middle-order batsman and outstanding fielder, Sammy is one of the hottest properties in world cricket and has appeared in all of the major domestic competitions.
He will play for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the forthcoming IPL, having appeared regularly for Sunrisers Hyderabad in previous years.
Over the last couple of seasons he has played for Titans in South Africa’s Ram Slam and his native St Lucia Zouks in the Caribbean Premier League.
In the Australian Big Bash League Sammy has played for Hobart Hurricanes, appearing in a couple of matches with Nottinghamshire’s Alex Hales this past winter, and in last year’s T20 Blast he sampled his first taste of county cricket during a brief stay at Glamorgan.
Born in St Lucia, Sammy became the first international cricketer from his island when he made his ODI debut in 2004. He would have been grateful for the further opportunities that came his way because he didn’t actually get on the field on that first occasion, as a match in a tri-series between West Indies and New Zealand in Southampton was abandoned due to bad weather.
Those other opportunities have been plentiful, thankfully. He went into this current ICC World Cup with well over 100 ODI caps to his name, having scored 1,800 runs and taken over 80 wickets.
At 6’5” tall, Sammy’s dream of playing Test cricket arrived in 2007 when he was selected on the West Indies’ tour of England. He introduced himself onto the world stage in the most explosive manner imaginable, taking 7-66 at Lord’s, the best bowling figures for a West Indian in his first Test since Alf Valentine in 1950.
On that same tour he completed the clean sweep of appearing in all three international disciplines by making his debut in International T20 matches.
Sammy’s leadership qualities shone from an early stage and he was given the Test captaincy in 2010. A return to Nottingham this summer will revive some bitter-sweet memories of his tenure as West Indies’ captain.
In 2012 he scored his only Test century at Trent Bridge, making 106 against England, in a losing cause, sharing a stand of 204 with Marlon Samuels.
By that stage of his career he was skipper of the West Indies across all three formats and he achieved another career high by leading them to the ICC World T20 title in October 2012.
Sammy has now retired from red ball cricket but is still one of the world’s leading lights in the white ball formats and he’ll be hoping to make his mark for the Outlaws.
He’ll become the third former West Indies Test captain, after Sir Garfield Sobers and Jimmy Adams, to appear for the county and joins a list of Nottinghamshire’s other Caribbean greats, that includes the likes of Deryck Murray, Franklyn Stephenson and Vasbert Drakes.
International Career Record
Tests 38
Runs 1323 runs HS 106
Wickets 84 BB 7-66
Catches 65
ODIs 123
Runs 1818 HS 89
Wickets 81 BB 4-26
Catches 66
T20i 58
Runs 511 HS 42*
Wickets 43 BB 5-26
Catches 27