Early years
Coming to England,Mascarenhas joined Bournemouth Cricket Club and helped them to win the 1996 Southern Cricket League. [6] [8] He played minor counties cricket for Dorset in 1996,making a single appearance against Cornwall in the Minor Counties Championship; [9] he took bowling figures of 7 for 64 in Cornwall's first innings. [10] He began playing for the Hampshire Second XI during the season,and made his senior debut,aged 18, [11] against Middlesex in a List A one-day match in the 1996 Axa Equity &Law League at the start of September. [12] Two-days after his one-day debut,Mascarenhas made his first-class debut against Glamorgan at Southampton in the County Championship; [13] he took 6 for 88 in Glamorgan's first innings,the best figures by a Hampshire debutant since Charlie Llewellyn's 8 for 132 in 1899. [14] He followed this up by playing against Kent in the County Championship,and in his first two matches he had claimed 16 wickets. [15] Mascarenhas was offered a two-year contract by Hampshire at the end of the season. [5]
Mascarenhas was afflicted with a back injury in 1997, [5] that limited him to six first-class and one-day matches apiece. [13] [12]
He then proceeded to make the first Rose Bowl century against Worcestershire in 2001. In 2004,he was the first player to record a hat-trick in Twenty20 cricket,claiming the wickets of Mark Davis,Mushtaq Ahmed and Jason Lewry of Sussex. He was part of the Hampshire team that won the C&G Trophy in 2005 and to finish runners-up in the Frizzell County Championship. In 2006,it was announced that Mascarenhas would receive a benefit year during the 2007 season as a reward for his excellent all round play for the county.
Following Shane Warne's retirement at the end of the 2007 season,Mascarenhas was made club captain for the 2008 County Championship season. During the 2009 County Championship Mascarenhas missed the first matches of the season while playing in the IPL with the Rajasthan Royals. On his return he led Hampshire to the final of the 2009 Friends Provident Trophy at Lord's,where Hampshire beat local rivals Sussex by 6 wickets.
Prior to the 2010 County Championship,Mascarenhas played for the Rajasthan Royals in the IPL,during which he picked up an ankle injury. Still injured for the first part of the 2010 English county season,Mascarenhas returned for Hampshire in the Friends Provident t20 against Kent,but during the match the injury flared up once more,therefore ruling him out for the rest of the season. [16]
During the 2013 season he announced,aged 35,that he would be retiring from county cricket at the conclusion of the campaign,bowing out after 18 seasons with Hampshire. In total,he had scored more than 12,000 runs in all formats and taken nearly 900 wickets.
Mascarenhas played in New Zealand for Otago between 2008–09 and 2011–12 and for Wellington in 2012–13. In the Australian Big Bash League he played for Melbourne Stars in 2012–13 and Hobart Hurricanes in 2013–14.
In 2008,Mascarenhas signed for the Rajasthan Royals of the Indian Premier League. Following the England and Wales Cricket Board decision to not allow centrally-contracted England players to play in the tournament,Mascarenhas was the only English representative in the tournament's inaugural year. He returned for the following season,playing five matches and taking six wickets,and in 2010 when he took four wickets in two matches. Following an ankle injury Mascarenhas was forced to return home from the tournament. [17]
Mascarenhas was bought by the Kings XI Punjab franchisee during the auction conducted in January 2011 but had to be replaced by David Miller after struggling to recover from an Achilles tendon injury. [18] He was one of the guest commentators for ITV during the season. He played for the side in both 2012 and 2013.
