James Neesham


James Douglas Sheahan Neesham, known as Jimmy Neesham, is a New Zealand international cricketer, who plays all formats of the game. He was born in Auckland and plays first-class cricket for the Wellington cricket team.

Domestic and T20 franchise career

Neesham began his first-class career with Auckland, but a move to Otago Volts worked well for him, as he made some important contributions in the 50-over format in the 2011/12 season, making three 40-plus scores in seven innings, all of them coming at more than a run a ball. He was among the wickets too, taking a career-best 5 for 44 against Wellington and 4 for 23 against Canterbury. The rewards came soon, as he was included in the limited-overs squads for the tour to South Africa.
Neesham was picked by IPL franchise Delhi Daredevils for IPL 7. The next year, he was picked by the Kolkata Knight Riders for IPL 8, but did not play a single match for them due to injury and was dropped from the squad the very next season.
Neesham played for the Guyana Amazon Warriors in the 2014 Caribbean Premier League, and for Derbyshire in the English 2016 NatWest t20 Blast. In June 2017 he signed to play for Kent in the 2017 NatWest t20 Blast, making his debut in Kent's opening match of the tournament in July.
In June 2018, Neesham was awarded a contract with Wellington for the 2018–19 season. In June 2019, he was selected to play for the Edmonton Royals franchise team in the 2019 Global T20 Canada tournament. In the 2020 IPL auction, he was bought by the Kings XI Punjab ahead of the 2020 Indian Premier League.

International career

Neesham made his test debut against India, scoring an unbeaten 137, the highest score on debut by a Test number 8 batsman. In June 2014 he made a century in his second test against the West Indies, becoming the first New Zealander to score centuries in his first two matches.
On 3 January 2019, in the first ODI against Sri Lanka, Neesham scored 34 runs in one over, including five sixes. This was the most runs scored in one over by a New Zealand batsman in an ODI match.
In April 2019, he was named in New Zealand's squad for the 2019 Cricket World Cup. On 1 June 2019, in New Zealand's first match of the World Cup, Neesham played in his 50th ODI. In New Zealand's match against Afghanistan, Neesham took his first five-wicket haul and his 50th wicket in ODIs.