Aaron William Benjamin

Aaron William Benjamin is an Emirati (Emirates Cricket Board ) cricketer (Left-arm fast bowler) who played Under-19 cricket team of United Arab Emirates (born 20 Sep 2000), in Panadura, Sri Lanka who was qualifier for ICC Asia under-19 World cup.

Early life
When Aaron was only a year old, his family migrated to Botswana, Southern Africa. From there, he began to play cricket and at the age of 13 he represented the Under-15 Botswana National Cricket team. His Under-15 debut for Botswana was on the 15th of July 2015 in a 3-match series against the Under-15 Namibia National Cricket team held at the Botswana Cricket Association oval, where he featured as the opening bowler in all 3 matches with best figures of 2/15. He continued to represent the nation of Botswana until he migrated to the United Arab Emirates in mid- 2015 and later became a double national athlete, having represented 2 countries at an international level by the age of 17. After which he was formally coached by former Sri Lanka Cricketers, Rumesh Ratnayake and Chaminda Vaas, at the Dubai International cricket stadium and the Tamil Union Cricket and Athletic Club respectively.

Cricket career
Aaron William Benjamin made his 50 over youth One Day International (ODI) debut for the United Arab Emirates National Under-19 cricket team on the 29 September 2018, during the 2018 ACC Under-19 Asia cup held in Bangladesh. This match was against the National Under-19 cricket team held at the Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protishtan (BKSP) cricket grounds in Dhaka, where he finished with figures of 0/13.

His debut wickets however, came in his 2nd match, against the India under-19 cricket team. He took the important wickets of former captain, Pawan Shah and vice-captain, Prabhsimran Singh (Current Indian Premier League (IPL) player), ending up with figures of 2/88. . Later that year, he was selected in the squad for the Under-19 Cricket World cup qualifiers (Asia Region) held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He and the team were successful in securing the UAE a place for the 2020 Under-19 cricket world cup to be held in South Africa.

Most recently, he was apart of the 2019 ACC Under-19 Asia cup qualifiers tournament held in Dubai, at the Dubai International Cricket stadium. After the UAE’s major victory in that tournament, the team traveled to Sri Lanka for the 2019 ACC Under-19 Asia cup. This marked Aaron's 4th ICC accredited tournament as an Associate cricketer within the last 2 years alone. Additionally he made his debut for the UAE Development XI, in 2018 edition of the Bukhatir Premier League, UAE's national cricket league, annually held at Sharjah Cricket Stadium.

Achievements

 * Best Bowler of the Year award 2018, received from, Ravichandran Ashwin.
 * Emerging UAE player of the year award 2019, received from Jonty Rhodes.
 * Best youth first division team award 2018, received from, Kumar Sangakkara.