Hilton Cartwright

Hilton William Raymond Cartwright (born 14 February 1992) is a Zimbabwean born Australian international cricketer who plays for Western Australia and the Melbourne Stars.

He is a right-handed all-rounder.

Cartwright represented Western Australia at the 2008–09 Australian Under-17 Championships, and subsequently progressed to the state's under-23 side in the Futures League, debuting in February 2012.

Cartwright said, "When I was younger, I saw myself as a batting all-rounder, and then I started taking a few wickets and people started saying, ‘'Oh you're a bowling all-rounder'’ because I was out of form with my batting. So it was quite hard to try to keep the idea of myself as a batting all-rounder in my own mind."

At grade cricket level, he plays for the South Perth Cricket Club.

Cartwright also holds British citizenship, and spent the 2010 English season playing for Sidmouth in the Devon Cricket League.

"I used to think 'I’m always going to play for Zimbabwe', but since moving to Australia I’ve actually never thought about playing for the English," said Cartwright.

After good form in a Futures League match against the Queensland Academy of Sport, recording a half-century and a five-wicket haul, Cartwright was selected to debut for Western Australia's team for the 2012–13 Ryobi One-Day Cup against Victoria at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, held on 7 November 2012.

In the match, Cartwright scored four runs from seven deliveries coming in at number seven in the batting order, and took a single wicket in Victoria's innings bowling medium pace, Western Australia's only wicket of the match.

In December 2012, Cartwright was named in the Perth Scorchers' squad for the 2012–13 Big Bash League season, replacing the injured Pat Cummins.

He debuted for the Scorchers in the second match of the competition, against the Melbourne Stars, and top-scored with 17 runs from Perth's innings of 69, the lowest completed score recorded in the tournament.

Cartwright made his first-class debut for Western Australia in January 2013, against New South Wales in the Sheffield Shield.

He scored 0 and 29 and took 0–19 off two overs.

His second first class game was unusual – he replaced Adam Voges during a game on day 4, when Voges was called up for international duty.

Cartwright took 0–22.

Cartwright's next first class game was in 2013–14.

Against Victoria he took 2–14 and 0–19 and scored 5 and 0.

In October 2015 Cartwright was picked in the Cricket Australia XI to play New Zealand.

He won man of the match in a Matador Cup game scoring 99 for the Cricket Australia XI against Queensland.

He also scored 66 against South Australia.

He was selected in the Australian National Performance Squad.

He made 81 against Australia A and 65 against India A.

That summer in the Sheffield Shield Cartwright scored 59 in a game against NSW; scored 44 and took 4 wickets against Queensland; scored 139 and took 2 wickets against South Australia; and scored 92 against Queensland.

Cartwright was picked to play for Australia A against a touring India A side in 2016.

He scored 117 and took a wicket, winning the man of the match.

Cartwright began the 2016–17 Sheffield Shield competition strongly, scoring 80 against South Australia, 59 against NSW and 84 and 41 (and one wicket) against Qld.

In April 2022, he was bought by the Oval Invincibles for the 2022 season of The Hundred in England.

In November 2016, Cartwright was added to Australia's One Day International (ODI) squad ahead of their three-match series against New Zealand, despite the fact his domestic one day performances for WA had been relatively underwhelming.

""Hilton bowls useful aggressive medium-pace and is a very good striker of the ball," said Trevor Hohns. "He is an exciting young prospect for Australian cricket and we have been watching him at the pathway level for some time now."

In December 2016 he was added to Australia's Test squad ahead of the Boxing day match against Pakistan.

Cartwright made his Test debut for the Australian national team in January 2017, having earlier played for Australia A and the National Performance Squad.

In January 2017 he won the Bradman Young Cricketer of the Year prize awarded by Cricket Australia.

Cartwright was born in Harare, Zimbabwe.

He spent his early life in Marondera, but at the age of 11 emigrated to Australia with his family after their tobacco farm was occupied.

"I don’t remember a huge amount of the bad side of Zimbabwe," said Cartwright.

"I remember living on a farm. Our cousins, were down the road. It was only in the last year or so when we had to move out of our farm home and live with my mum’s side of the family in Harare was when my perspective started to change."

His family settled in Perth, Western Australia, where he attended Wesley College.

After his arrival to Perth, Cartwright impressed locals with his cricket skills.

Cartwright was picked for the under-13 South Perth Cricket Club district team where he had early success, averaging 34 in his first season.

After three more successful seasons, he made his grade-cricket debut in third grade, scoring an unbeaten 50*.