Ian David Kenneth Salisbury (born 21 January 1970) is an English former cricketer, one of the few leg-spinners to play Test cricket for England in recent years. Salisbury played in fifteen Tests and four One Day Internationals between 1992 and 2000. He played first-class cricket for Sussex, Surrey and Warwickshire in a career stretching from 1989 to 2008. The cricket writer, Colin Bateman, commented, "the selection of Ian Salisbury against Pakistan in 1992 made cricket romantics rejoice. When he played at Lord's he became the first specialist leg-spinner selected for England since Robin Hobbs in 1971". The reality was that in his subsequent Test career, Salisbury's tally of twenty wickets cost almost 77 runs apiece. Early career Salisbury was born in Northampton, England, and made his first-class debut for Sussex in 1989, taking the wicket of Ian Austin in both innings. The following year he claimed 42 wickets, albeit at a somewhat expensive average of 49.40, but his potential was recognised with a spot on the England A tour to Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and the following winter (again with England A) he toured West Indies with some success, taking 14 wickets at 27.42. 1992 was Salisbury's breakthrough year, seeing him pick up 87 first-class wickets at under 29 apiece, including six five-wicket hauls. He was rewarded both with being named one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in the next year's Almanack, and with his Test match debut. International career His first appearance for England was in June 1992, against Pakistan at Lord's. This was his best Test match with the ball, and he took five wickets, although finishing on the losing side. In the next Test he made an important half-century in the first-innings, which helped England draw the match, though he had a poor match with the ball, and was then dropped for the rest of the summer. This was to become a familiar pattern, as England regularly turned to Salisbury now that leg-spin was being made fashionable again by the emergence of Shane Warne, and just as regularly discarded him after a couple of matches; never in his fifteen Test career did he play more than three games in a row. The muddled selectoral thinking which affected Salisbury and other England players in this era was epitomised with his next test appearance against India in 1993. The Wisden review of this tour observed: "rarely, if