Marcus Stoinis

Predominantly a limited-over cricketer, Australia’s Marcus Stoinis is a destructive lower-order batsman and a medium-fast bowler with an imposing physique. Known for his bowling variations in the middle overs, he is also considered as a bonafide all-rounder.

After making his first-class debut for Western Australia against Queensland in January 2009, he was not regularly selected due to his consistency in the domestic circuit. Before grounding himself in Australian domestic culture, Stoinis decided to spend a part of 2012 with English season playing for the Peterborough Town Cricket Club in the Northampton Premier League and took a hat-trick in one of the matches.

After a little stint in England, Stoinis was selected in the Perth Scorchers squad before the 2012-13 Big bash League replacing injured Mitchell Marsh. After featuring for Scorchers in the BBL for a few seasons, he made a name of himself as one of the prolific all-rounders in the coveted tournament.

Stoinis made his ODI and T20I debut in the series against England in 2015. On July 31, Stoinis played his maiden T20I match but failed to make any significant difference, and eventually, Aussies lost by 5 runs. On his ODI debut, Stoinis fell prey to Moeen Ali on just 4 runs and went wicketless in his four overs.

Stoinis came into the limelight when he was bought by the Delhi Capitals (formerly known as Delhi Daredevils) before the start of the 2015 edition of the Indian Premier League. After not featuring in the plans for Daredevils, Stoinis was bought and swapped by two different teams KXIP and RCB which were looking for an allrounder to bolster their squads. There are some players whose graphs in international cricket and IPL are completely contrasting and Marcus Stoinis is a formidable one among all of them. 

Stoinis was promoted to permanently open the innings for the Melbourne Stars in the 2018 BBL and it turned out to be very profitable as he became the leading run-scorer for the Stars in that season. He also picked 14 wickets, thus proving how massively he improved his game. 

Released from RCB’s plan, Stoinis was bought back by his former club Delhi Capital for INR 4.8 crore ahead of the 2020 edition of IPL. 

Stoinis’ homecoming season was quite an exemplary one as he amassed 352 runs and also scalped 13 wickets in the 2020 edition of the IPL.

The Perth-born was caught in a controversy when he directed a homophobic slur against Melbourne Renegades bowler Kane Richardson and was fined 7,500 dollars on January 5, 2020. Two games later, the Melbourne Stars batsman blasted 149 runs from 77 balls against Sydney Sixers setting a new record for the highest individual score in BBL 2019-20 season. 

Stoinis also holds the record for having scored the most runs in a BBL season. In the 2019-20 edition, he smashed 705  runs (that includes a ton and six half-centuries) for Stars in 17 games. 

The Perth-born all-rounder’s dream of representing his country at the biggest stage became true when he was selected in Australia’s squad for the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup but he picked up a side strain injury just after 4 games and was replaced by Mitch Marsh. 

Delhi Capitals will rely heavily on his skills of power-hitting along with chipping in with some crucial overs in the IPL 2021 and success may pave the way for Shreyas Iyer and Ricky Ponting to finally eye the big prize of the IPL.

Already secured his spot in the limited-overs format for the Aussies and his addition to the squad has bolstered their lineup for the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup.

(As of March 2021)