Batting style: Right Handed bat
Bowling style: Slow left-arm orthodox
Played for: Australia, New South Wales,
Kochi Tuskers Kerala, Sydney Sixers, Bowler
Profile
One man’s loss is another man’s gain- a proverb that is brought to life very often in the world of cricket. Stephen O’Keefe’s international debut will stand witness to that. If not for the injury to Jason Krejza and Victoria’s Jon Holland and the niggle sustained by Nathan Hauritz during Australia’s away ODI series against England, O’Keefe wouldn’t have earned a national call-up.
Born in Malaysia, O’Keefe migrated to Australia at the age of two. He started playing for the Hawksbury club and made his debut for New South Wales in 2005 against Tasmania taking two wickets in a winning cause. After playing only eight matches for NSW he had scored 365 runs at an average of 52.14 and taken 26 wickets at an average of 27.53.Most notable was his performance for Australia ‘A’ against Sri Lanka ‘A’, where he had figures of 7-83 and made scores of 61 and 47. His performance came less than two weeks prior to Hauritz’s injury which compelled the selectors to include him in the Pakistan series. However, he didn’t make the cut as Australia went in with four fast bowlers. He made his T20 international debut earlier against Pakistan in the same series taking an impressive haul of 3-29.
As a batsman, O’Keefe has a limited array of shots and has to work hard to improve on his strike rate. He is not a big turner of the ball and relies on variations in pace and bounce to outfox the batsman. He is still on a learning curve and it may take him some more years to add new variations to his bowling.
Fast Facts
Stephen O’Keefe is Australia’s first left-arm spinner to take three wickets on debut in an international T20.
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