Kane Richardson

Despite being in the Australian set-up for a considerable amount of time, Kane Richardson has remained as a part of the Australian bench strength in the limited-overs set-up owing to a large pool of fast bowlers. He has played a few matches here and there and has impressed in his limited opportunities. Richardson has the ability to bowl fast and relies on his change of pace to outfox opposition batsmen. 

Richardson first made his presence felt during the 2009-10 U-19 World Cup which also had future Australian stars like Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Marsh. Though he didn’t play in all the matches, Richardson impressed in the 3 matches he played in the tournament. He bagged some crucial wickets and also chipped in with some important knocks coming lower down in the order. 

Following his impressive returns in the Under 19 World Cup, Richardson was snapped up by the Adelaide Strikers for the 2010-11 Big Bash League season. Richardson finally managed to break into the Australian squad when Starc was injured for the 2nd ODI against Sri Lanka in 2013. He was brought in as a cover and went on to play his maiden ODI match. 

He established himself as a clever bowler and was snapped up by the Rajasthan Royals ahead of the 2014 IPL. It was after his IPL debut that Richardson managed to make his T20I debut against Pakistan in 2014. Despite making a name for himself as a T20 specialist, Richardson has time and again showed that he can also cope with the ODI format. He returned with an exceptional five-wicket haul against India in Canberra in 2016 but over the years, he hasn’t really managed to cement his place in the XI. 

Richardson was also part of the 2019 World Cup squad and appeared in just a couple of matches. He was pretty impressive and bagged 5 wickets in 2 matches as Australia bowed out of the quadrennial event after losing to eventual champions England in the semi-final. After an impressive show in the World Cup, the Adelaide-born seamer was bought by the Royal Challengers Banglore ahead of the 2020 edition of the IPL to fulfil the vacant space of Mitch Starc. Although the Aussie was signed for a whopping INR 4 crores he wasn’t given an opportunity to showcase his skills as the Bengaluru-based franchise relied on an Indian pace attack. A poor show by Navdeep Saini in the early stages of the IPL 2021 saw him replaced by Richardson as managed to bag one wicket on his debut for the IPL giants.

Richardson has the ability to swing the ball late and can also hurry the batsmen for pace. His trademark delivery is the one that in-slants before it swings late and away from the batsman. Equipped with perhaps the most impressive beard in international cricket, Richardson will look to make it big with his canny bowling if given an opportunity, especially in limited-overs cricket.

(As of June 2021)