Johnson Charles (born 14 January 1989) is a

St Lucia Saint Lucia is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean. Part of the Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, it is located north/northeast of the island of Saint Vincent (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines), Saint Vincent ...

n international

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er who plays for the

West Indies The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...

. As a

wicket-keeper In cricket, the wicket-keeper is the Cricket player, player on the fielding (cricket), fielding side who stands behind the wicket, ready to stop Delivery (cricket), deliveries that pass the batsman, and take a Caught, catch, Stumped, stump the ...

batsman In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the cricket ball, ball with a cricket bat, bat to score runs (cricket), runs and prevent the dismissal (cricket), loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since Septembe ...

, Charles started his ODI career against

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

in March 2012. His first

T20I Twenty20 International (T20I) is a form of Twenty20 cricket, in which each team plays a single innings with a maximum of twenty overs. The matches are played between international teams recognized by the International Cricket Council (ICC). ...

came against

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

in September 2011, and he became just the second cricketer from the island of St Lucia to play for the West Indies (the first was Darren Sammy, who was captain in Charles' international debut). Johnson was included in the West Indies' 15-man squad for the

2012 ICC World Twenty20 The 2012 ICC World Twenty20 was the fourth edition of the Men's T20 World Cup, formerly known as the ICC World Twenty20, an international Twenty20 International, Twenty20 cricket tournament that took place in Sri Lanka from 18 September to 7 O ...

held in September and October that year, where the team won the tournament. Charles was also a member of the West Indies team that won the

2016 T20 World Cup The 2016 ICC World Twenty20 was the sixth edition of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup, formerly known as the ICC World Twenty20, a Twenty20 International cricket tournament that was held in India from 8 March to 3 April 2016, and was the first edi ...

Domestic and T20 franchise career

Charles played his first twenty20 match in January 2008, representing Saint Lucia in the Stanford

Twenty20 Twenty20 (abbreviated T20) is a shortened format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the county cricket, inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two t ...

. Opening the batting with Keddy Lesporis, Charles managed scores of 2 and 21 from the only matches he played in the competition. Later that year he debuted for the Windward Islands in the West Indies Board Cup, the regional one-day tournament. His performances were not sufficient to secure a place in the team's one-day side, and in 2009 Charles played neither List A nor twenty20 cricket. However, he made his first-class debut in January that year and played eight matches for the Windward Islands in the Regional Four Day Competition. In 16 visits to the crease he accumulated 292 runs, including a single half-century, putting him seventh in the team's list of leading run-scorers in that year's competition. Charles did not represent the Windward Islands in the 2009/10 Regional Four Day Competition, but in 2010 he returned to the List A side for the West Indies Board Cup, and played his first twenty20 match for the team. In the first match of the Caribbean T20, Charles opened the batting with

Devon Smith Devon Sheldon Smith (born 21 October 1981 in Hermitage, Saint Patrick Parish, Grenada) is a former cricketer who featured as an opening or top order left-handed batsman. He played for the West Indies and for the Windward Islands in regional ...

and exploited several reprieves (Charles was dropped three times and nearly run out) to score his first half-century in the format. Charles was eventually named in

Cricinfo ESPNcricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a Sports journalism, sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including Liveblogging, liveblogs and sco ...

's best XI of the 2016 Caribbean Premier League. On 3 June 2018, he was selected to play for the Toronto Nationals in the players' draft for the inaugural edition of the Global T20 Canada tournament. In November 2019, he was selected to play for the Sylhet Thunder in the 2019–20 Bangladesh Premier League. In July 2020, he was named in the Barbados Tridents squad for the

2020 Caribbean Premier League The 2020 Caribbean Premier League (CPLT20) or for sponsorship reasons, Hero CPL 2020 was the eighth season of the Caribbean Premier League, the domestic Twenty20 cricket league played in the West Indies. All matches were played in Trinidad and ...

. He later replaced

Ravi Bopara Ravinder Singh Bopara (born 4 May 1985) is an English cricketer who plays for Northamptonshire and has represented the England national team. Originally a top-order batsman, his developing medium pace bowling has made him a batting all rou ...

in the Jaffna Stallions squad for the inaugural

Lanka Premier League The Lanka Premier League (abbreviated as LPL; , ) is a professional franchise cricket league established in 2020 in Sri Lanka. Matches are played using the Twenty20 cricket format by five teams named after Sri Lankan cities. The league was int ...

season. On 16 December 2020, Charles scored a cameo 26 with six fours from 15 balls, to help the Stallions prevail over the Galle Gladiators to claim the 2020 LPL title. He was later named in Cricinfo's team of the 2022 Caribbean Premier League.

International career

Having been selected in the West Indies squad for the 2012 Twenty20, Charles opened the bat with

Chris Gayle Christopher Henry Gayle (born 21 September 1979) is a Jamaican cricket team, Jamaican cricketer who has played international cricket for the West Indies cricket team, West Indies from 1999 to 2021. Nicknamed "The Universe Boss", Gayle is wide ...

in the third match (he batted after the fall of the first wicket in the West Indies opening match and in the second did not bat as the match was rained off). After building a century partnership with Gayle, Charles (who was described by ESPNCricinfo as having "little obvious pedigree as an opening batsman") went on to score 84 to help his team to victory against England. It was his highest score in first-class, List A, or even twenty20 cricket. The following month Charles was dropped from the West Indies squad to face Bangladesh in a five-match ODI series. He scored his maiden ODI century, 100 with eight fours and a six, in the 5th ODI of the Windies' 2012–13 tour of Australia played at the

Melbourne Cricket Ground The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), also known locally as the 'G, is a sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne, Victoria. Founded and managed by the Melbourne Cricket Club, it is the largest stadium in the Southern Hemisphere, the Lis ...

. Charles was also a part of the Windies side that won the

. On 26 March 2023, in the second T20I against South Africa, Charles scored his maiden

century A century is a period of 100 years or 10 decades. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. ...

in T20I cricket, notching 118 runs off just 46 balls. As he got to his 100 from just 39 balls, then and there, he scored the fastest T20I century by a West Indian cricketer and the joint second fastest T20I century of all time. Charles was later named as the man of the series, where the West Indies defeated the Proteas by a 2 to 1 margin. In May 2024, he was named in the West Indies squad for the

2024 ICC Men's T20 World Cup The 2024 ICC Men's T20 World Cup was the ninth edition of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup, co-hosted by Cricket West Indies and USA Cricket from 1 to 29 June 2024. It was the first major ICC tournament to include matches played in the United ...

tournament.

Accolades

A stand at the Darren Sammy Stadium was renamed in Charles' honour.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Charles, Johnson 1989 births Living people Saint Lucian cricketers West Indies One Day International cricketers West Indies Twenty20 International cricketers Antigua Hawksbills cricketers Barbados Royals cricketers Jaffna Kings cricketers Jamaica Tallawahs cricketers Multan Sultans cricketers Expatriate cricketers in Pakistan Nangarhar Leopards cricketers Rajshahi Royals cricketers Rangpur Riders cricketers Saint Lucia representative cricketers Saint Lucia Kings cricketers Sylhet Strikers cricketers Windward Islands cricketers Wicket-keepers Expatriate sportspeople in Antigua and Barbuda Expatriate sportspeople in Barbados Expatriate cricketers in Afghanistan Saint Lucian expatriate sportspeople Expatriate cricketers in Bangladesh Expatriate cricketers in India Expatriate cricketers in Sri Lanka