Date of birth – 30 Nov 1984 Leicester
Nottinghamshire First Class Debut – 3 July 2002 v West Indies A (h)
Samit Patel made his Nottinghamshire county debut more than a decade ago and he has played a part in two championship triumphs, taking the title-winning catch at Old Trafford in 2010.
The all-rounder first represented England in 2008 and became a T20 international three years later. Completing the full set, of appearing in all three disciplines, was high on Samit’s list of ambitions and was achieved with a Test debut in Sri Lanka.
Permanently on the fringes of England’s limited-overs setup, Patel can consider himself unlucky not to have been selected for his country’s squad to travel to Bangladesh for the ICC World Twenty 20. Certainly his batting talents and ability to use the ball well in challenging conditions has seen him used sparingly in the subcontinent thus far.
Central to tipping the Yorkshire Bank 40 final in Notts’ favour with an excellent spell of 3-21 over seven overs, Patel was again central to the county’s efforts with bat and ball across all formats in 2014.
Taking 36 wickets and scoring 1748 runs across all three formats, it was his T20 form that caught the eye. Leading wicket taker with 15 and with 379 runs at a strike rate of over 130, he helped Nottinghamshire reach the knockout stages once again. In 2015, he will be hoping his game can go one step further and he can take the side one step further as well.