As many players have found, following in a famous father's footsteps is not easy and Mali Richards is no exception. Although he was born in Taunton he grew up in Antigua and emerged as a middle-order batsman who could bowl seam, although the comparisons were slightly checked as he is a left-hand bat. But the weight of expectation increased when he scored a hundred for Antigua Under-15s and then as a 19-year-old hammered 319 for Antigua against Combined Virgin Islands. By then he had also made a mark in England where, as a 17-year-old at Cheltenham College, he scored 958 runs at 56.35. He had a game or two for Gloucestershire 2nd XI and was then on the books at Middlesex in 2003 and 2004 but played 12 second-team matches, primarily as a batsman, and scored 286 runs at 16.82, with a best of 57, his only fifty and never looked like pressing for a first-team place. He later criticised the club for their handling of him. He played for Oxford UCCE while at Oxford Brookes without doing anything of note with bat or ball, and it seems unlikely that he will make any major impact on the game.
Cricinfo staff

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Mar 2, 2008 Portrait of Mali Richards © Stanford 20/20

Jun 3, 2007 Mali Richards keeps his eye on the ball © MCC

Apr 24, 2006 Mali Richards celebrates one of three wickets © Getty Images

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