Tony Ura (born 15 October 1989) is a Papua New Guinean

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. Ura is a right-handed

opening batsman In cricket, the batting order is the sequence in which batters play through their team's innings, there always being two batters taking part at any one time. All eleven players in a team are required to bat if the innings is completed (i.e., if ...

International career

Having played age-group cricket for Papua New Guinea Under-19s in the 2008 Under-19 World Cup and 2010 Under-19 World Cup, he was selected in the

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

squad for the 2011 World Cricket League Division Three, where he played 6 matches, helping them earn promotion to 2011 World Cricket League Division Two. It was in this competition that he made his

List A List A cricket is a classification of the Limited overs cricket, limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competit ...

debut against

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. He played a further 5 List A matches in the competition, the last coming against

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

. In his 6 matches in the competition, he scored 92 runs at a

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

of 15.33, with a high score of 52. HIs

half century This is a general glossary of the terminology used in the sport of cricket. Where words in a sentence are also defined elsewhere in this article, they appear in italics. Certain aspects of cricket terminology are explained in more detail in cr ...

came against Bermuda. Ura made his

One Day International One Day International (ODI) is a format of cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of fifty overs, with the game lasting up to 7 hours. The World Cup, generally held every four yea ...

debut on 8 November 2014 against Hong Kong in Australia. He made his

Twenty20 International 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). ...

debut against

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

in the

2015 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier The 2015 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier, for the 2016 World Twenty20, was held from 6 to 26 July 2015. The tournament was hosted by both Ireland and Scotland. 51 matches were played among 14 nations, down from 72 matches among 16 nations previous ...

tournament on 15 July 2015. In the

2018 Cricket World Cup Qualifier The 2018 ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier was a cricket tournament that took place during March 2018 in Zimbabwe. It formed the final part of the Cricket World Cup qualification process for the 2019 World Cup in England and Wales. The top two t ...

, Ura scored a national record 151 runs from 142 balls against Ireland. He was named player of the match despite his team losing. In the next match against

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 ...

, the inaugural ODI between the two teams, he scored 37 runs from 45 balls, hitting two sixes off the bowling of

Ashley Nurse Ashley Renaldo Nurse (born 22 December 1988) is a former West Indian cricketer who plays first-class, List A and Twenty20 cricket for Barbados. He is a right-arm off-break bowler and a right-handed batsman. Nurse was a member of the West Indies ...

. Following the conclusion of the Cricket World Cup Qualifier tournament, the

International Cricket Council The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the global Sports governing body, governing body of cricket. It was founded as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 by representatives from Australia, England, and South Africa. In 1965, the body wa ...

(ICC) named Ura as the rising star of Papua New Guinea's squad. In August 2018, he was named in Papua New Guinea's squad for Group A of the 2018–19 ICC T20 World Cup East Asia-Pacific Qualifier tournament. In Papua New Guinea's opening match of the qualifier, against

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, Ura scored 120 runs from 55 balls. In March 2019, he was named in Papua New Guinea's squad for the Regional Finals of the 2018–19 ICC T20 World Cup East Asia-Pacific Qualifier tournament. On 23 March 2019, during Papua New Guinea's match against the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

, Ura became the first batsman for Papua New Guinea to score a century in a T20I match, scoring 107

not out In cricket, a batsman is not out if they come out to bat in an innings and have not been dismissed by the end of an innings. The batsman is also ''not out'' while their innings is still in progress. Occurrence At least one batter is not out at ...

. He was the leading run-scorer in the tournament, with 243 runs in four matches. The following month, he was named in Papua New Guinea's squad for the

2019 ICC World Cricket League Division Two The 2019 ICC World Cricket League Division Two was an international cricket tournament that took place in April 2019 in Namibia. It was contested by six teams; Canada national cricket team, Canada, Hong Kong national cricket team, Hong Kong, Om ...

tournament in Namibia. In June 2019, he was selected to represent the Papua New Guinea cricket team in the men's tournament at the

2019 Pacific Games The 16th Pacific Games (), also known as Apia 2019, were held from 7 to 20 July 2019. The Games were held in Apia, Samoa, returning there for the first time since 2007. It was the third time overall that the Pacific Games were held in Samoa. The ...

. In September 2019, he was named in Papua New Guinea's squad for the

2019 ICC T20 World Cup Qualifier The 2019 ICC Men's T20 World Cup Qualifier was a cricket tournament held during October and November 2019 in the United Arab Emirates to determine the teams that would qualify for the 2021 ICC Men's T20 World Cup tournament. The six teams finis ...

tournament in the United Arab Emirates. In August 2021, Ura was named in Papua New Guinea's squad for the

2021 ICC Men's T20 World Cup The 2021 ICC Men's T20 World Cup was the seventh edition of the Men's T20 World Cup, formerly known as the ICC World Twenty20, a Twenty20 cricket tournament that took place from 17 October to 14 November 2021. The tournament was hosted by Unit ...

. In May 2024, he was named in Papua New Guinea’s 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.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ura, Tony 1989 births Living people Papua New Guinean cricketers Papua New Guinean sportsmen Papua New Guinea One Day International cricketers Papua New Guinea Twenty20 International cricketers Wicket-keepers Place of birth missing (living people) Pacific Games gold medalists for Papua New Guinea Pacific Games medalists in cricket