Michael Di Venuto

Michael James Di Venuto is a former Australian cricket player. Growing up in Australia, Venuto played first class cricket with Tasmania Tigers. Nicknamed the Diva, Venuto is a left-handed batsman and a right-arm medium pacer and an occasional leg-break bowler.

Venuto began playing cricket for the St. Virgil’s Cricket Club while attending the St. Virgil’s College at Tasmania. Later Venuto joined the North Hobart Cricket Club and participated in the TCA Grade Cricket of the Tasmanian Cricket Association. Venuto was able to grab the attention of the state selectors by performing well at the grade cricket matches. While still a teenager, Venuto made his first class cricket debut in 1991-92 season with Queensland.

Venuto played a total of 298 first class matches with a batting average of 46.43 and a bowling average of 96.8. With 10,117 runs Venuto is second-best run scorer in the history of Tasmanian Tigers’ history, right after Jamie Cox

The national team selectors picked up Venuto in 1996 - 97 season after performing well at the Mercantile Mutual Cup. He made his debut by playing for the Australia team that toured South Africa in 1997. Although performing fairly well in the series with a top score of 89 runs, the tour produced mixed reviews about his performance. Overall, being a strong but inconsistent player, he was dropped from the one-day international squad after playing 9 matches for Australia with a batting average of 26.77. His powerful batting style and a strike rate of 85.76 led to his early dismissals in matches and this in turn led to his exclusion from the ODI squad.

Career Highlights

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