Biography

Born and brought up in Malaysia, Arul Suppiah is a batsman and a part time off spin bowler who has played for the Malaysian national cricket team and plays for English county side Somerset. He made his debut for Malaysia in 1999 at the age of just 15 and took a hat-trick in the Saudara Cup against Singapore. This was the first instance of a hat-trick in the cup's 37 year history.

He began playing for the Somerset second XI and telling contributions to the team helped him break in to the first team in recent years. In 2005, he scored his first first-class century for Somerset against Derbyshire. He fell out of favour in the year 2007 and was relegated to the second team once more. In between his duties for Somerset, he still played for Malaysia. In 2009, he returned to the first team for Somerset and began to open the innings along side Marcus Trescothick. He also played in the Friends Provident Trophy and the Twenty20 Cup matches for the team. In the same year, he went on to score 1000 runs for the first time in the season.

Come 2011, he recorded career best figures of six wickets for five runs in a match against Glamorgan in only 3.5 overs to bowl his side to victory. Following this, he went on to score a thrilling 156 against the Indians in a practice match before the Test series.