Michael McEvoy

Michael Stephen Anthony McEvoy (born 25 January 1956) is an Indian-born former English first-class cricketer who played first-class and List A cricket between 1976 and 1990, with the bulk of his career being between 1980 and 1984.

He was playing for the Essex Second XI at the age of 17,[1] but his debut in first-class cricket was in a County Championship match against Middlesex in August 1976; he scored 18 and 13, opening the batting in both innings.[2] At the start of September, he scored his maiden first-class half-century, producing an innings of 61 against Somerset.[3]

McEvoy remained a bit-part player in the Essex side for the rest of the 1970s, but this changed in 1980 when he played in 16 first-class and eight List A games. His final aggregate of 600 first-class runs was the most he scored in any season, albeit with only two fifties and an average of little more than 20.[4] He again played a fair number of first-team games in 1981, and claimed his only three first-class wickets when he took 3/20 against Middlesex at Lord's,[5] but he was confined to the Second XI after mid-July and left Essex at the end of the season.

Without a first-class county to play for in 1982, McEvoy turned out for Cambridgeshire in minor counties cricket, and made his maiden List A half-century in scoring 52 against Warwickshire in the NatWest Trophy.[6] In 1983, he returned to senior cricket with Worcestershire, and near the end of the season hit his only first-class hundred when he struck 103 against Warwickshire.[7] He averaged 22.76 in scoring 569 first-class runs that summer, his highest in any season, but in 1984 that figure collapsed to 14.46, and his total of 188 runs from 13 innings told its own story.[4]

That was that as far as McEvoy's first-class career was concerned, but he then enjoyed several seasons with Suffolk, playing quite regularly from 1985 until 1990, and then occasionally until 1992.[8] He scored four centuries in the space of six weeks in 1989,[9] and appeared in Suffolk's losing Championship final against Cheshire in 1985, though he was dismissed for just 5.[10] He played one List A game in the NatWest Trophy each year from 1985 to 1990.