Gary Keedy

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Gary Keedy is a slow-left arm spin bowler for Lancashire. He was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire on 27th November 1974.

Keedy joined Lancashire in the winter of 1994-95 from Roses rivals Yorkshire. Gary was signed by then Lancs coach David Lloyd in a motorway eaterie on the M6. Although it took time for him to become a leading light of the Lancashire attack, he was awarded his county cap in 2000.

It was in 2003 that Keedy first started to impress observers, taking sixty wickets in the County Championship as Lancashire narrowly missed out on their first Championship title since 1934 to Sussex. Since then he has remained on the periphery of England selection. He was considered unlucky not to win a place to tour Sri Lanka in 2003-4. The selectors chose Glamorgan's Robert Croft instead.

In 2004, Keedy enjoyed the most successful season of his career so far, taking 72 Championship wickets, making him the leading first-class wicket-taker amongst England qualified players. Only Mushtaq Ahmed of Sussex took more first class wickets. Unfortunately for him, Lancashire were relegated to Division Two of the Championship despite being favourites for the title.

He again missed out on selection to tour with England, this time to South Africa, in favour of the more conservative pick of Gareth Batty.

After taking 29 Championship wickets in 2005, Keedy suffered a finger injury on his spinning finger which ruled him out for the final month of the season. The injury likely cost Keedy a place on England's tour to Pakistan and India.

Until recently, many observers believed the main reason that Keedy had never played for the national team is his lack of batting talent and poor fielding qualities. Despite this, Northants' inexperienced off-spinner Monty Panesar, who is also not renowned for his batting or fielding skills, played all three tests in the recent series in India.