Gary Keedy was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, on 27 November 1974 and, having played one County Championship match for his home county in 1994, he moved to Lancashire in 1995. During a 23-year professional career as a left-arm spin bowler he took 696 First-Class wickets while claiming 119 victims in List-A and 72 in T20. Despite appearing for England Under-19s in 1993 and 1994 and achieving considerable success in domestic cricket he was never rewarded with a full England appearance.
Keedy spent 18 years at Old Trafford, taking a total of 840 wickets and being named ‘Lancashire Player of the Season’ in 2004 after claiming 72 wickets; he was also part of the team that won the County Championship title in 2011.
Keedy moved Surrey in 2013 in search of more regular First-Class cricket, playing six County Championship and seven List-A matches for his new county. Despite having signed a two-year contract he moved again, to Trent Bridge, in 2014.
His role at Notts was principally as an Assistant Physiotherapist and spin-bowling consultant for the 2ndXI, but he was still registered as a player and made four First-Class appearances in his two seasons at Trent Bridge, taking 18 wickets at an average of 31.77. Keedy’s final County Championship match was at Hove in July 2015, when he claimed five wickets as Notts beat Sussex by an innings and 103 runs.
After retiring from cricket, Keedy pursued a career as a Physiotherapist and obtained a degree from the University of Salford. He then developed his own business called ‘Spin Science’ and worked in a private hospital in Blackburn where he helped to rehabilitate patients who had had knee or hip replacements.
Keedy then became a sales representative for an American manufacturer of medical devices, selling their products to hospitals. Comparing his two careers, Keedy claimed that ‘there is a lot of correlation between sport and business in every sense.’
May 2020
Nottinghamshire First-Class Number: 628