Cricket player Yannic Cariah from Trinidad was born on June 22, 1992. He has played for both the Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) and Trinidad and Tobago in local West Indian cricket. Since 2022, Yannic Cariah has competed for the West Indies cricket team.
Early Life
He is a native of Coalmine, a little town in Sangre Grande. Yannic Cariah was also mentored by veteran Trinidadian leg spinner Samuel Badree, and he improved his understanding of the leg spin by watching videos of seasoned leggie Shane Warne. Additionally, he refined his batting techniques by viewing footage of veteran batter Brian Lara.
Domestic Cricket Career
Cariah represented the West Indies under-19 team at the 2010 Under-19 World Cup in New Zealand. His performance during the competition included 110-run unbeaten innings against Sri Lanka in the third-place playoff. During the 2010 U-19 World Cup, he was West Indies’ lone century.
He finished the 2010 ICC U-19 World Cup as the second-highest wicket-taker for the West Indies U-19 team, just behind Jason Holder’s 12 kills, with eight wickets in six matches, an economy rate of 4.21, and an average of 20. Cariah was a vital part of the West Indies U-19 team that advanced to the semi-finals of that competition.
Cariah, a left-handed batsman and right-arm leg-spinner, made his List A debut in the month of October of the year 2009 while participating in the 2009–10 WICB President’s Cup for the West Indies under-19s. In the Regional Four Day Competition for 2010–11 against the Windward Islands, he made his first-class debut for Trinidad & Tobago in February 2011.
Cariah recorded his first-ever first-class five-wicket haul against Guyana in his fourth game, taking 5/46. Additionally, he took 5/44 against the Windward Islands in the inaugural game of the 2012–2013 Regional Super50 (a limited-overs competition). Due to the abundance of first-choice spinners in the domestic circuit, he found it difficult to maintain his position as a legspinner and switched his attention to batting instead.
For the inaugural season of the Caribbean Premier League, Yannic Cariah was bought by Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel in 2013. Yannic then made his T20 debut during the 2013 CPL during a game against the Guyana Amazon Warriors, but he did not bat or bowl during his CPL debut as Red Steel secured a nail-biting three-run victory despite Kevin O’Brien’s outstanding batting, who led the team with 70 runs.
With 691 runs in ten matches, including a century and a career-best knock of 196, he was the top run-scorer in the 2016–17 Regional Four Day Competition. He was chosen in October 2019 to lead the West Indies Emerging Team in the 2019–20 Regional Super50 competition.
With his all-around performance in the final, taking 3/8 and scoring a 54 ball 32 runs during the final of the 2019–20 Super50 Cup versus Leeward Islands, he guided the West Indies Emerging Team to win their first ever Super50 Cup. He won the Player of the Match award as the West Indies Emerging Team easily defeated the Leeward Islands by 205 runs after being bowled out for just 88 runs in the final.
Cariah scored three times for Queen’s Park Cricket Club in May 2022, and he was a key contributor to the team’s victory in the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board T20 Championship. He led the West Indies President’s XI against Bangladesh in an unofficial tour match in June 2022.
Despite only having infrequent appearances in white ball cricket, Yannic Cariah scored five centuries in 71 first-class games, which elevated him to the top of the field for national selection. He had participated in 27 List A contests, but none of them took place between April 2013 and October 2018.
Cariah participated in two first-class matches for West Indies A against the visiting Bangladesh A team before receiving a surprising call-up to the three-match ODI series in New Zealand in August 2022.
International Cricket Career
Despite his admirable remarkable domestic exploits, he was never selected for international cricket until August 2022, indicating that his accomplishments had mostly gone unrecognized. He was included in the West Indies ODI team for their series against New Zealand in August 2022.
At the age of 30, Yannic Cariah received his first call-up to the senior side for the bilateral One Day International (ODI) series against New Zealand in place of Gudakesh Motie, who was recovering from a finger fracture, proving to be a late bloomer at the international level.
On August 17, 2022, Cariah played in his first ODI for the West Indies against New Zealand. He returned from the nine overs of his ODI debut with statistics of 1/49, including the important wicket of Michael Bracewell, which helped the West Indies, who were chasing 191, to a comfortable victory by five wickets. Cariah hadn’t played in a List A 50-over match since December 2019 before his ODI debut.
On October 3, 2022, he played his first T20I match against Australia. After a lengthy absence of six years, his T20I debut against Australia also marked his return to the T20 format. He impressed on this occasion by taking the expensive wicket of Glenn Maxwell in his opening over and finished with economical figures of 1/15 from the four overs, including thirteen dot balls. Despite his effective bowling, West Indies lost the opening T20I match, which was a close one with Australia winning with one ball remaining in a low-scoring run chase of 146.
Bio Data
Born: 22 June 1992
Age: 30 Years
Birth Place: Trinidad
Batting: Left-handed
Bowling: Right-arm leg spin
