Alex Tyson Carey (born 27 August 1991) is an Australian international cricketer. Formerly an Australian rules footballer, he is currently a wicket-keeper who plays for the Australian national team in all formats. In domestic cricket, he plays for South Australia and Adelaide Strikers. He was the captain of the Greater Western Sydney Giants in 2010, but when they joined the Australian Football League in 2012, he was left out of the squad and returned to his home state of South Australia, where he began to play domestic cricket.
Carey initially made his debut as a specialist top-order batsman in 2013, but was unsuccessful and dropped. He moved down the batting order and became a wicket-keeper.
Carey's 2017–18 Big Bash League season form saw him make his One Day International (ODI) debut for Australia, replacing an ill Tim Paine on 19 January 2018. Later the same month, he was named in Australia's Twenty20 International (T20I) squad for the 2017–18 Trans-Tasman Tri-Series, which started in February 2018. He made his T20I debut for Australia against New Zealand on 3 February 2018.
In April 2018, Carey was awarded a national contract by Cricket Australia for the 2018–19 season. On 8 May 2018, he was named vice-captain of the Australia T20 team. In April 2019, he was named in Australia's squad for the 2019 Cricket World Cup. He scored 375 runs from 10 matches and was Australia's 4th highest run scorer during the World Cup, behind Steve Smith, Aaron Finch and David Warner. He also set the record for most catches by a wicket-keeper in a single edition of the World Cup, with 18 catches. He also stumped two batsmen to take his tally to an overall 20 dismissals. Following the World Cup, the International Cricket Council (ICC) named Carey as the rising star of the squad. He was named as wicket-keeper in the 'Team of the Tournament' for the 2019 World Cup by the ICC.
On 16 July 2020, Carey was named in a 26-man preliminary squad of players to begin training ahead of a possible tour to England following the COVID-19 pandemic. On 14 August 2020, Cricket Australia confirmed that the fixtures would be taking place, with Carey included in the touring party.
Carey played in the first two T20I matches as wicket-keeper, but was dropped for the third in favour of Matthew Wade. Wade remained Australia's T20I wicket-keeper through the rest of 2020 and 2021, although Carey played some T20I matches as a batsman.
Carey remained as Australia's ODI wicket-keeper, and played all three ODIs of the 2020 England tour. In the third ODI of the tour, on 16 September 2020, Carey scored his maiden ODI century, with 106 off 114 deliveries. He shared a partnership of 212 runs with Glenn Maxwell for the sixth wicket and helped Australia win the match by 3 wickets.
In July 2021, Carey was named as Australia's captain for Australia's 1st ODI against West Indies in the absence of Aaron Finch who was suffering from a knee injury at the time. It was the first time Carey was named as Australia's ODI captain after already being vice captain of the side. Australia won the 1st ODI under his captaincy by 133 runs and Carey also completed 1000 ODI runs and 50 ODI catches in the match.
Carey made his Test debut on 8 December 2021, in the first Test of the 2021–22 Ashes series. He was chosen as the wicket-keeper for the first two Tests of the series, after Tim Paine stepped down from the Test team. Carey's baggy green cap was presented to him by Adam Gilchrist. Carey equalled the most catches by a wicket-keeper on Test debut, with eight catches. Carey was selected for Australia's 2022 tour of Pakistan and played in 3 tests and 3 ODIs. In the first innings of the first test, Carey scored 19 runs off of 43 balls. Australia did not bat a second time, and the match was drawn. In the first innings of the second test, Carey scored 93 off of 159 balls, before being bowled by Pakistani captain, Babar Azam. Carey did not bat during the second innings and the match was drawn. This was his highest score and was one run higher than previous Australian captain and wicketkeeper, Tim Paine, who had a high score of 92. In the first innings of the third and final test, Carey scored 67 runs off of 105 balls and helped Australia reach a total of 391 runs. Carey did not bat in the second innings and Australia won the match by 115 runs and won the 3 match series 1–0. Carey finished the test series with 179 runs from 3 innings, with a high score of 93 and an average of 59.66, which was the second highest on the Australian side.
In December 2022, Carey scored his maiden Test century during the Boxing Day Test against South Africa, becoming only the second wicketkeeper (after Rod Marsh) to score a century at the MCG, and the first Australian wicketkeeper to score a Test century since Brad Haddin in 2013.
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