Keaton Jennings – Keynote Speaker

An opening batter for England Cricket and captain for Lancashire County, Keaton Jennings has played for England in 17 test matches around the world playing against India, Pakistan, South Africa, West Indies and Sri Lanka. As well as his on-field performances, Keaton has excelled off the pitch. He has managed to balance playing international cricket with fulfilling his thirst for knowledge to achieve a Masters in Business Administration, and has completed ambassador roles for Visit Britain on sales missions in India.

Having grown up in South Africa, Keaton Jennings made his first-class debut for Gauteng in 2011 and captained South Africa Under 19. This was a sign of things to come as he has gone on to display his leadership skills in captaincy roles for Durham, Lancashire and England Lions.

Keaton relocated to England in 2012 and subsequently signed with Durham, making his first team debut later that year and contributing to Durham winning the County Championship in 2013.

The leading run-scorer at Durham in the 2016 season, with 1,548 runs at a batting average of 64.5, including six centuries plus a double century against Yorkshire, Keaton also scored 88 in the final of the 2016 NatWest T20 Blast competition, he was the epitome of calmness under pressure. His success saw him selected as the County Championship player of the year by the Cricket Writers’ Club before he then joined the England Lions tour to the United Arab Emirates.

After becoming eligible for England selection in April 2016, Keaton was first selected to represent England in the 2016 India test tour where he debuted in Mumbai and scored a century; his innings of 112 was the highest by any opener on Test debut against India. He went on to play in the first four Tests of the summer against South Africa and after a busy summer with England, made the move from Durham to Lancashire for the start of the county season.

Keaton Jennings re-joined the England test squad again against Pakistan in May 2018 and for the Sri Lanka tour that October. He scored a century against the home side in the second innings of the first test to set a winning target for his team and played a crucial role in the field as part of England’s victory in the third and final Test, taking four catches at short leg in Sri Lanka’s first innings to restrict them to a total of 240. This saw him equal the England record for number of catches taken in a single Test innings. Once again Keaton proved he was indispensable.

Since 2019, Keaton Jennings has shown his drive and ambition by becoming a part of the Lancashire commercial team to help broaden his skills and experience. This also complimented the accounting and business management undergraduate degree he was doing at the time. He travelled to Dubai and played a key role in the partnerships team as the club renewed their long-standing Emirates sponsorship deal. Another role he fulfilled was keynote speaker during a mental health campaign with Hill Dickinson.

With success following Keaton in all formats of the game, he scored his first century in a T20 match against his former side, Durham on the opening day of the 2020 t20 Blast. He scored 108 runs from 63 balls, the highest score in a T20 match at Chester-le-Street ever.

In May 2021, Keaton Jennings completed his maiden Roses Hundred for Lancashire in the match against Yorkshire and in July 2022, he scored his maiden triple century in first-class cricket with 318 runs against Somerset. He had the highest run total of any batsman in the 2022 County Championship Division One. He was unstoppable. What made these performances even more remarkable was that in June of 2022 Keaton was also finishing his MBA, in which he was awarded a distinction.

In August Keaton Jennings captained Lancashire during the One Day Cup campaign and in October was recalled to the England Test team once again for the 3-match Test series against Pakistan. An accolade to his exceptional contributions on the field, Keaton was named Lancashire Cricket’s Player of the Year 2022 and in January 2023 was announced as the new captain for Lancashire. Keaton has earnt his reputation as one of the most respected personalities in English Cricket and given his accolades to date there’s no doubt more excellence is to come both on and off the field.