Luke Wright

Luke Wright's energy and seemingly boundless enthusiasm to smite sixes, field with athleticism or bowl bustling medium pace made him a valuable white-ball player for England in his time.

Wright represented England Under-19s, won the Denis Compton medal four times, and scored a century on County Championship debut for Sussex. He was also a key part of the Sussex team that won the C&G Trophy in 2006.

The following year he smashed 103 off 45 balls in the Twenty20 Cup century, his first T20 hundred. Though Sussex were defeated in the semi-final, Wright finished as the highest run-scorer in the competition, with 346 runs made at a strike rate well clear of the rest.

He was selected for the ODI team at The Oval later that summer, and hit 50 on debut from No. 7 against India. He made another half-century, against New Zealand the following year, opening this time, but none after that in the four-odd years for which he was more or less a regular in the ODI side.

In England's T20 World Cup-winning team of 2010, he contributed 90 runs in significant circumstances, and though he bowled only one over in the tournament, he got rid of the in-form Cameron White in the final against Australia with it. Come the next edition of the tournament, he was one of England's most combative performers in a less impressive campaign in Sri Lanka, making an unbeaten 99 against Afghanistan, and 76 off 43 in a win against New Zealand. An injury ruled him out of the 2014 event in Bangladesh, and that was it for his England career.

Wright stayed in demand in T20 after that, and played 57 games across seven seasons for Melbourne Stars in the BBL, including making a sparkling 44-ball hundred in the very first season of the competition, 2011-12. And he spent the 2013-14 southern summer playing for Auckland in their Super Smash-winning campaign that year.

For Sussex, he was a force in T20. He made five hundreds in all for them, including an unbeaten 153 in a successful chase of 226 against Essex in 2014. The club rewarded his energy and optimism with the T20 captaincy in 2015, and followed up with leadership in all formats for the following season, but Wright was afflicted by injury in a generally below-par season. Captaincy did not suit him and he resigned midway through 2017, saying the responsibility had drained the enjoyment from his game.

He ended his BBL career the following year, slightly prematurely, after a bout of concussion. On Blast Finals Day later in 2018, his final first-class season, his 92 against Glamorgan in the semi-final set up a 300th T20 appearance in the final - though Sussex lost that game.

Wright continued to churn out short-form runs in partnership with Phil Salt at the top of the Sussex order over the next two years. In 2022, having retired from playing at 37, he was appointed an England selector.