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Matt Boyce (now at Leicestershire) was
there, Paul Cook has gone on to captain
Lincolnshire, whole leg-spinner Barghav
Modha once took ten wickets in a game
against Worksop College – pretty much
unheard of at schoolboy level – so I was
just left holding up an end while he got all
the glory!
It may surprise some to learn that in those
days I was seen as more of a batsman
than a bowler, and I used to open the
batting or my school side. At first, I had
to rely on my technique with my batting,
because that was what was going to get
me through, as I wasn’t big enough or
strong enough to power the ball to the
boundary. I’d always expected that id
end up being tall, as my father is 6ft 4in
and my uncle is something like 6ft 10in.
However, it wasn’t until my final year
at school that I really began to grow – I
put on almost a foot in a year to reach
my current height of 6ft 6in. Once I had
the power to go with my size, I was able
to find the boundaries much more easily,
but I had already developed the bedrock
of a sound technique to work from.
This was the time I also began to change
from being a relatively gentle medium-
pace bowler to a fast bowler. Again,
because I was quite small, I had relied on
good control and away-swing, rather than
pace and bounce, to get my wickets. But
after my growth spurt, everything began to
click into place: I could add some proper
pace to those attributes I already had.
That combination ensured that I made my
debut for Leicestershire second XI in the
summer of 2004 while still at school.
MyWorld in Cricket
Signed copies of ‘MyWorld in Cricket’ are available
from the Trent Bridge Shop and trentbridge.co.uk