West Indies Career
Edwards made his first-class debut on 1 February 2002, playing for Barbados against the Windward Islands. In the first innings he opened the bowling with Tino Best; he had to wait until the second to take his only wicket in the match, that of Junior Murray. The Barbados squad had plenty of fast bowlers, with the likes of Best, Pedro Collins, Corey Collymore, Vasbert Drakes, and Ian Bradshaw, who all had international experience by mid 2003. Strong competition and injury meant Edwards struggled for selection. However, the selectors had monitored his development and in May that year Edwards impressed batsman Brian Lara while bowling in the nets. On the basis of the potential he showed, Edwards was included for the West Indies Test against Sri Lanka the following month. Edwards made his Test debut against Sri Lanka at Kingston, Jamaica, making 5 not out and returning with bowling figures of 5/36 and 1/54 in a winning West Indian effort. In just his second first-class match, he produced the third-best bowling figures by a West Indies player on debut.
In One Day Internationals, his debut was against Zimbabwe at Harare, taking career best figures of 6/22 off 7 overs against a strong Zimbabwean side. During the tour he picked up an injury to his shins which Edwards felt badly effected his bowling in South Africa. In four Tests against South Africa he managed eight wickets while conceding 648 runs.
In the June 2009 ICC World Twenty20 Edwards suffered a back injury. He suffered a recurrence of the injury when he played for the Deccan Chargers in the Indian Premier League in October that year. Consequently his central contract was not renewed and Edwards later underwent back surgery.
In the 2010/11 West Indian cricket season Edwards made his come back from injury, taking 22 wickets from 6 matches for Barbados at a cost of 23.77 runs. Having proved his fitness Edwards was called into the West Indies squad for the first Test against Pakistan in May 2011, almost two years after he was sidelined with a back injury. Though included in the squad he had to wait until India toured in June before returning to the side. Though he was apprehensive ahead of the first Test he troubled the Indian batsmen and took four wickets.
Edwards was bought for $60,000 by Khulna Royal Bengals to play in the newly formed Bangladesh Premier League to be held in February 2012. In March 2012 the West Indies Cricket Board announced that while Edwards was considered whenever Test and T20I teams were selected, he was overlooked in ODIs to manage his workload; he has not played an ODI since 2009.
Read more about this topic: Fidel Edwards
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