Scott Borthwick is a left handed batsman and a right arm leg spinner who was born in Sunderland and plays for Durham in the English County. He made his way up the ranks by playing sporadically for Durham's second XI and the Durham academy in 2006-07 and made his List-A and first class debut in the 2009 season. He was in and out of the first XI and came under the spotlight for wrong reasons towards the end of the season, where he was smashed for 5 consecutive sixes by Essex batsman James Foster in a Pro-40 game. The last ball was comparatively better - a wide, which helped Essex grab victory from the jaws of defeat.

In 2010, Borthwick travelled to Australia to work on his fitness and learn the art of leg spin from legends like Shane Warne and Mushtaq Ahmed. The learning seemed to help him, as he started the 2011 season with a match-winning 4 for 25 in a match against Warwickshire. A national call up came soon with England trying out youngsters in their ODI game against Ireland in August. A month later, he was selected in the T20 squad to play against the visiting West Indies side, and impressed with a miserly spell of 4-0-15-1. He also travelled to India to play the ODIs that year but could feature in only one game. After some fine performances in the domestic circuit, Borthwick made his Test debut in the final Test at Sydney in the 2013-14 Ashes Series.

By Karthik Lakshmanan