Michael Yardy

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Michael Yardy England (Eng)

Batting style	Left-handed batsman (LHB)
Bowling type	Left arm medium / slow left arm orthodox
	Tests	ODIs
Matches	0	5
Runs scored	-	30
Batting average	-	10.00
100s/50s	0/0	0/0
Top score	-	12*
Overs bowled	-	36
Wickets	-	4
Bowling average	-	26.50
5 wickets in innings	-	0
10 wickets in match	-	N/A
Best bowling	-	3-24
Catches/stumpings	-	1/0
As of 9 November 2006 Source: Cricinfo.com

Michael Howard Yardy (born November 27, 1980 in Pembury, Kent) is an English cricketer from Pembury in Kent. He plays for Sussex County Cricket Club. He is a left handed batsman whose unusual technique has attracted a great deal of attention due to a pronounced shuffle from leg to off immediately prior to the bowler releasing the ball. Yardy also bowls slow left arm with a characteristic round armed action similar to that of Australia's Darren Lehmann.

Yardy made his Sussex debut in an early-season NatWest Trophy game against Hertfordshire in May 1999, although it was not a very successful way to begin his career: opening the batting, he was lbw for nought and went for 14 from two wicketless overs. He also played a one-day game against Sri Lanka A, again with little success, and though he played a few games the following year it was only in 2001 that he became anything like a regular in the side. He played ten games in 2002, but only seven in total over the next two years, before returning with a vengeance in 2005.

He enjoyed an excellent domestic summer that season, making 1,520 first-class runs at 56.29 with five centuries, including a career-best 257 against the Bangladeshis in May. Only Murray Goodwin, who hit 335* in 2003, had made a higher score for Sussex since the Second World War. ^[1] In the one-day game, Yardy was less successful with the bat, averaging well under 20, but he achieved a career-best bowling performance of 6-27 against Warwickshire in the totesport League.

Yardy was picked for the England A tour of West Indies in 2005-06, and the following summer he forced his way into the full England team. On August 10, 2006 he was provisionally selected for England's ICC Champions Trophy initial squad of 30, retaining his place in the final 14-man squad that was announced on September 12. On August 23, he was also named in the 16-man squad for the NatWest Series of One-day Internationals against Pakistan.

Making his full international debut in the Twenty20 international at Bristol on 28 August, Yardy made a useful unbeaten 24 from 14 balls and followed this with an excellent catch to dismiss Shahid Afridi off the bowling of Jamie Dalrymple. Yardy then proceeded to have Mohammad Yousuf caught by Ian Bell to claim his first international wicket and cap a personally successful debut, although he could not prevent England succumbing to a five wicket defeat.

On September 8 Yardy made his England ODI debut against Pakistan at Trent Bridge, where he bowled Mohammad Yousuf for 29 and caught and bowled Shoaib Malik for a duck. Later that match he had the Pakistani wicket-keeper Kamran Akmal caught at slip by captain Andrew Strauss. In his ten overs Yardy took 3-24, the best figures by an England spinner on his ODI debut.^{[citation needed]}