Bringing Home the Ashes by Author

Author:Author
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-03-28T16:00:00+00:00

2 GROWING UP

T HE dressing room at Headingley possesses a reputation as a savage place the meek should not enter. It has been home to some of the biggest characters to have graced English cricket and some of the most outspoken voices. On face value, it would be exactly the kind of environment that would be guaranteed to strike fear into a Sheffield lad with inherent shyness. But to be honest, its modern version was the making of me.

Spending time within those four walls certainly helped bring me out of myself, once I had been given experience of senior cricket in its second-team equivalent. That second XI was one sprinkled with a lot of senior guys who had been in and out of the first-class scene. I was able to learn a lot from them through chatting about the game or watching how they went about things. As a young player, it was invaluable to be around the likes of Simon Guy, Joe Sayers, Craig White and Steven Patterson, cricketers who knew the county circuit and the challenges it threw up. Getting to see how they played the game and how they prepared might have seemed fairly simple stuff, but it was crucial for someone straight out of secondary school who had not played a great deal of three-day cricket before. It was especially good when it came to things like how to build an innings. Constructing one requires the right patience, attitude and application, and up until that point I had played two or three games maximum a year for the academy, so getting accustomed to playing for longer periods was important.

Other members of the second XI were a season or two further ahead of me in terms of their development. Alongside me were Jonny Bairstow, Gary Ballance and Adam Lyth – with whom I shared an opening stand of 133 in scoring that debut half-century against Derbyshire’s second team. He went on to hit an unbeaten 115. Even then, he used to thrash the ball to all parts while retaining a distinctive poise about his batting.

In fact, it has been amazing to play in a winning England team this past year with so many of the guys I came through the ranks with at Yorkshire. During those early days as a second XI cricketer traipsing around little-known outgrounds, there were nearly always three of us in a team together. These days we rock up at Cardiff, Lord’s or Trent Bridge and do the same for an Ashes Test match and it feels surreal.

We have all come through a club traditionally viewed by outsiders as one riven with in-fighting and full of players looking after number one. I can only speak from my own experience, but if it was like that in decades gone by, it has obviously changed a lot. Yes, there are times over any season when things get tense and not everyone remains pals, but show me a club that doesn’t have the odd difference of opinion.

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