2009. Star Players

Welcome to our Star Players

The ACST would like to give a warm welcome to our three star players to the Thailand International Cricket Sixes. Ian Westwood, Rikki Clarke and Darren Maddy all star for Warwickshire CCC in the English County Championship. Having players of this quality at an ACST event is a real honour. It adds prestige to this wonderful event and assists its future development. Of course, they are not the only Warwickshire stars to grace an ACST event. Jonathan Trott starred for the Perth Postels in Chiang Mai a few years back, and it certainly doesn’t seem to have done his career any harm!

We are delighted that these cricketing great are coming to Thailand to help promote the game and to coach cricketers and Thai kids to assist in the future development of the game in the country.

Players of all abilities are always made welcome at our tournaments, but I’m sure that you will agree that it adds something special to participate in the same tournament as players that we normally only see from the stands or on the TV. I hope the three fellas enjoy their time with us, as much as we enjoy hosting them.

Here is a brief introduction to our “stars”.

Darren Maddy

Vastly experienced Darren is the veteran of our three stars, having made his debut for Leicestershire in 1994. He bats right handed up the order and bowls right arm medium. Darren reached his peak in the first-class game around the turn of the millennium, when he played in three Test Matches and eight ODI’s. He also added two County Championship medals in 1996 and 1998. Darren’s career received a massive boost with the advent of Twenty 20 cricket. He was already a good all rounder in one day cricket, but he excelled in the new form of the game. He helped his county to winning the Twenty 20 Cup in 2004 and 2006. At the end of the 2006 Darren moved across the Midlands to Warwickshire where he took over the captaincy after just one game! He was rewarded with a call up to the England T20 side, where he made four appearances in 2007.  He led the club to promotion in 2008 before handing over the reigns to Ian Westwood.

Rikki Clarke

Tall and well balanced Rikki is an excellent all round cricketer. He is a strong middle order batsman and he backs this up by bowling right arm fast medium deliveries. The twenty-eight-year-old began his career at Surrey where he scored a hundred on debut. He collected the Cricket Writers Club's prestigious Young Cricketer of the Year award in 2002, and was almost immediately called up for the Champions Trophy tournament in Sri Lanka. He returned to the one-day squad after the World Cup, whereupon he became the first Englishman for 31 years to take a wicket with his first delivery. He toured Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the West Indies with England. He returned to the side against Pakistan in 2006 and also made the Champions Trophy squad. In 2007 he moved to Derbyshire where he was named captain in 2008. However, he soon moved on to Warwickshire, who had long courted his services. Ricki still has aspirations of returning to the England fold to add to his two Test Match and twenty ODI appearances.

Ian Westwood

Twenty-seven-year-old, Birmingham born Ian became captain of Warwickshire for the 2009 season, taking over from Darren Maddy. He is a highly regarded promising left handed opening batsman who collected the NBC Denis Compton Award 2007, which is an annual award given to 'The Most Promising Young Player' at each of the 18 English first class counties. Ian also bowls right armed off breaks.