Left arm pacer Andy McKay is a genuine quick bowler whose pace earned comparisons with Shane Bond. However, his career was marred by injury problems and hardly got a chance in his first four seasons with Auckland. But good times came in the 2007-08 season when he picked up 24 wickets and followed it up with 23 wickets in the next season. He made a switch to Wellington in the 2009- 10 season and emerged as the joint leading wicket taker in the domestic one day competition. The impressive show earned him a spot in the New Zealand squad for the home one day international series against Bangladesh. He was also in contention for a spot in the Test squad against Australia but a stress fracture ruled him out for three months.

McKay returned to the national team making his debut in the T20 format against Sri Lanka in May, 2010, returning with impressive figures of 2 for 20. A Test call up came in the same year, when he was chosen for the squad to tour India. He was selected in the playing eleven in the Nagpur Test, and though he didn't have an impressive debut, he got the prized scalp of Sachin Tendulkar as his first Test wicket. McKay did not play Test cricket after the India game but continued playing ODI cricket for the Kiwis, he had a good series against Zimbabwe, where he picked up 7 wickets in 3 matches which also included his career best 4/53. However, after going wicketless against South Africa in March 2012, he was dropped and has since fallen out of favour with the selectors.

Interesting fact: Apart from cricket, Andy McKay is also a qualified physiotherapist.


By Karthik Lakshmanan
As of April 2014