Simon Kerrigan

Simon Christopher Kerrigan (born 10 May 1989) is an English cricketer who currently plays for Lancashire County Cricket Club. He bowls slow left arm orthodox spin. Kerrigan signed for the club in September 2008, and made his debut for the first team in 2010, filling in for Gary Keedy, Lancashire's senior spinner. In August 2011, Kerrigan was selected for the England Lions for the first time. The following month he took the best first-class bowling figures for Lancashire since 1953 (9 wickets for 51 runs) and that year Lancashire won the County Championship for the first time since 1950.

The 2012 season saw Kerrigan replace Keedy as Lancashire's main spinner in first-class cricket. He made his Test debut against Australia in the fifth Ashes Test played at The Oval in 2013.

Born in Preston, Lancashire, Kerrigan started his cricket as a junior at Palace Shield Premiership club Fulwood & Broughton before moving on to Ormskirk in the Liverpool and District Cricket Competition. He received his first contract with Lancashire in September 2008 along with ten other young cricketers. In 2009, Kerrigan broke into Lancashire's second team which progressed to the final of the Second XI Championship and the semi-final of the Second XI Trophy.Gary Keedy, Lancashire's experienced and established spinner, suffered a broken collar bone in April 2010, immediately before the start of the English cricket season. With several months on the sidelines, Keedy's absence gave the opportunity to young spinners Kerrigan and Stephen Parry to play first team cricket. Lancashire coach Peter Moores said "We’re lucky in some ways in that we’ve got Stephen Parry, who played quite a lot of first-team cricket last season, but we’ve also got Simon Kerrigan, who bowled beautifully to take six wickets in the pre-season game against Yorkshire in Barbados and we could also use Steven Crofty's off-spin". Kerrigan made his first-class debut in Lancashire's first match of the season taking his maiden five wicket haul and finishing with seven wickets in the match to help Lancashire to victory over Warwickshire. His maiden wicket was that of England cricketer Ian Bell. Kerrigan played 13 first-class matches in his first full season with Lancashire, taking 30 wickets at an average of 32.23 including three five-wicket hauls. When Keedy returned from injury he and Kerrigan sometimes bowled together in the County Championship. However, their partnership was not initially ideal as they were attempting to out perform each other. After a discussion they decided they would be more effective if they worked together to build pressure while bowling.