Lancashire Spin Magazine Winter 2021

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G’S OFFICIAL LANCASHIRE MATCHDAY PROGRAMME 

LIGHTNING’S OFFICIAL MATCHDAY LANCASHIRE PROGRAMME LIGHTNING’S OFFICIAL MATCHDA 

JOSH BOHANNON: ENGLAND LIONS CALL-UP

36 SPIN WINTER 2021 

WINTER 2021 SPIN 37 

26 SPIN WINTER 2021 WINTER 2021 SPIN 27 

CLUB DIRECTORY 

Registered Office: 

Lancashire Cricket 

Emirates Old Trafford 

Talbot Road 

Manchester 

M16 OPX 


CONTACT INFORMATION 

Ticket Office 

03333 202833 

* 1.2p per minute plus your phone 

company’s access charge. 

tickets@lancashirecricket.co.uk 

Partnerships/Commercial 

0161 868 6725 

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Hospitality 

0161 868 6810 

hospitality@lancashirecricket.co.uk 

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0161 868 6849 

foundation@lancashirecricket.co.uk 

Lancashire Cricket official store 

0161 848 8611 

onlinestore@lancashirecricket.co.uk 

CLUB OFFICIALS 

The Board 

President: Sir Howard Bernstein 

Chair: Andy Anson 

Honorary Treasurer: Les Platts 

Non-Executive Members: 

Sara Tomkins, Rachel Downey, 

Maurice Watkins CBE, 

Andrew Flintoff MBE, James 

Sheridan, John Abrahams 

Chief Executive: Daniel Gidney 

Head Coach: Glen Chapple 

Director of Cricket 

Performance: Mark Chilton 

Finance Director: Angela Lowes 

Operations Director: Steve Davies 

HR Director: Joanne Hunt 

SPIN MAGAZINE 

Editor: Alex Glover 

This programme was designed and 

produced on behalf of Lancashire 

Cricket by Ignition Sports Media. 

www.ignitionsportsmedia.com 

4 Andy Anson, Chair 

8 Daniel Gidney, CEO 

14 Glen Chapple 

17 David Thorley 

21 Mark Chilton 

24 James Anderson: 1,000 

First-Class Wickets 

36 Josh Bohannon 

40 Kate Cross 

44 Phil Salt 

JOSH 

BOHANNON: 

ANOTHER 

YEAR OF 

PROGRESSION 

Winter 2021 

26 

36 

Josh Bohannon enjoyed another summer 

thriving in Lancashire’s top-order. His 

performances were rewarded with an in-demand 

seat on the plane to Australia, with the England 

Lions squad that will shadow the main touring 

party. Spin Magazine spoke to Josh ahead of 

the trip Down Under… 

FROM THE EDITOR 

Welcome to another jampacked edition of Spin Magazine from 

Lancashire Cricket. 

In this post-season winter edition, you will read reflections from Chair Andy 

Anson, CEO Daniel Gidney, men’s Head Coach Glen Chapple and Regional 

Director of Women’s Cricket David Thorley who will provide you with the 

full lowdown on performances and crunch all the numbers from 2021. 

JAMES 

ANDERSON: 

1,000 

FIRST-CLASS 

WICKETS 

Written by Sam Dalling and first appeared in The 

Cricketer Magazine… 

Then, we take a look at James Anderson’s 1,000 First-Class wickets in a 

special feature documenting his career, from those he has encountered along the way. Followed 

by feature interviews with newly appointed Director of Cricket Performance Mark Chilton - who 

sets out his vision for the years to come - and Josh Bohannon before he headed Down Under on 

his first tour with England Lions. 

Spin Magazine also caught up with both halves of the No Balls Cricket Podcast - Kate Cross and 

Alex Hartley, as well as a first interview with Lancashire Cricket’s newest addition, England wicket 

keeper Phil Salt. 

There are also reflective features with two Lancashire Cricket Hall of Famers, Sir Clive Lloyd and 

Farokh Engineer which I believe that Lancashire Members – both young and old - will thoroughly 

enjoy reading. 

On behalf of Lancashire Cricket, I would like to wish you and your families a very Merry Christmas 

and a Happy New Year – and we look forward to seeing you at Emirates Old Trafford in 2022. 

Best Wishes, 

48 Royal London Cup 

52 2021 Season Review 

58 Paul Allott 

65 Sir Clive Lloyd 

68 Alex Hartley 

74 Jack Morley 

76 Farokh Engineer 

80 Foundation News 

84 MRG 

88 Qasim Ali 

Designed by: James Ginieres 

Printed by: Stephens & George 

Print Group 

Alex Glover | Spin Editor 

WINTER 2021 SPIN 3

Andy 

Anson 

— CHAIR — 

As the dust now begins to settle on a fascinating 2021 season – my 

first full campaign as Chair of Lancashire Cricket – I feel we can now 

take stock of a year of progress, both on and off the field. 

S 

tarting with on the field 

matters, I believe that we can 

all be immensely proud of the 

efforts of Glen and our men’s team in 

taking the LV= Insurance County 

Championship title battle down to the 

final session of the last day of the 

season, before we were edged out by 

just three and a half points when 

Warwickshire secured victory over 

Somerset. 

I was lucky to have attended Liverpool 

Cricket Club on the previous day, 

when our captain Dane Vilas struck the 

winning boundary to seal a nail-biting 

one-wicket win over Hampshire and 

send us top of the table, for at least the 

evening, whilst we waited with bated 

breath for the conclusion at Edgbaston. 

Glen and his team had put their all into 

the 2021 season and that final game 

had just about every twist and turn you 

could imagine. The celebratory scenes 

at the conclusion were a collective 

release of all that emotion and a 

season’s worth of hard work and toil. 

Whilst we were disappointed to end the 

season without a trophy, we have made 

great strides in bedding in several 

of our young players at the Club and 

putting together a strong squad which 

can compete on all fronts in all formats. 

This was evidenced by our second 

place finish in the Championship, sitting 

alongside yet another qualification 

from the North Group of the Vitality 

Blast. In addition, a young side 

agonisingly missed out on the knockout 

stages of the Royal London Cup on 

Average Points Per Game, which was 

implemented following a COVID-19 

outbreak which prevented a couple of 

sides in our group from completing their 

fixtures. 

It has been great to see several of our 

players rewarded for their efforts with 

international call-ups for the winter. 

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed watching the 

Lancashire duo of Liam Livingstone 

and Jos Buttler throughout the ICC T20 

World Cup – who have both performed 

impressively over the course of the 

last couple of weeks. Liam enjoyed 

a breakthrough summer with the 

national team, his T20 century against 

Pakistan at Trent Bridge and that huge 

six at Headingley captured everyone’s 

imagination. 

I was also thrilled to hear of Josh 

Bohannon’s selection for the England 

4 SPIN WINTER 2021

GLEN AND HIS 

TEAM PUT THEIR 

ALL INTO 2021 AND 

THAT FINAL GAME 

HAD EVERY TWIST 

AND TURN YOU 

COULD IMAGINE 

Lions tour of Australia. Josh’s fine form 

in the County Championship – scoring 

853 runs at an average of just over 

53 – has been rightly rewarded and he 

has joined his Red Rose teammates, 

Saqib Mahmood and Matt Parkinson, 

in the touring party which will shadow 

England’s Ashes squad. 

Our Regional Director of Women’s 

Cricket, David Thorley, will expand 

on this within his column, but it was 

another landmark summer for the 

women’s game and it was great to see 

both Lancashire Women and Thunder 

(representing the region of Lancashire, 

Cheshire and Cumbria) make huge 

strides under the guidance of Head 

Coach, Paul Shaw, and his team of 

experienced coaching staff. 

In the second year of contracted 

players – yet the first full summer of 

fixtures – Lancashire Women set the 

tone by going unbeaten through their 

domestic T20 competition, albeit with 

several rained off matches, they finished 

top of the North Group and set the 

platform for Thunder in the Rachael 

Heyhoe Flint and Charlotte Edwards 

Cup competitions. This was followed 

by the success of The Hundred as 

a competition to really capture the 

imaginations of the British sporting 

public. 

It was wonderful to see young children 

and their parent’s wearing shirts 

adorned by the names of their new 

heroes amongst them Kate Cross, 

Sophie Ecclestone and Alex Hartley and 

I am looking forward to the continued 

year-on-year growth and development 

of women’s cricket in the North West. 

Immediately following the conclusion 

of the 2021 season, the Club was 

delighted to confirm the appointment 

of Mark Chilton as Director of Cricket 

Performance. Mark will be a great 

addition to the Senior Management 

Team, and I am delighted that he will 

be heading up the cricket side of the 

Club as we look ahead to next season 

and beyond. The Club’s search to fill 

the role, looked both within cricket 

and at individuals with relevant skill 

sets from outside the world of cricket 

and it became clear that Mark was the 

outstanding candidate throughout the 

process. 

As I said at the time of his appointment, 

Mark has a wealth of knowledge 

and skill in both coaching and sports 

performance and he has used his 

role to hone his skill set over the last 


three years. Mark has shown a great 

willingness to study best practice in 

other sports and continues to have an 

appetite to learn and develop himself as 

well as others. 

Our ambitions for next season remain 

unchanged – to bring silverware back 

to this great Club. The hunger to win 

trophies is shared by everybody at 

Emirates Old Trafford, from players to 

staff, Members, and supporters. 

We have already strengthened the First 

Team squad with the signing of Phil 

Salt from Sussex – Glen will detail our 

reasons behind the signing within his 

pages of Spin Magazine, but Phil is an 

addition who will excite our supporters, 

evidenced by his three fearless displays 

at the top of England’s order in the 

Pakistan One Day International series 

during the summer. 

The Club will continue to look for players 

– both domestic and overseas – who 

can compliment our current squad and 

help to push us closer to achieving 

our ambitions in the 2022 season and 

beyond. 

I know that Daniel will touch on this 

in more detail in his column, but I 

wanted to briefly mention the cancelled 

England versus India fifth Test Match at 

Emirates Old Trafford. Despite the bitter 

disappointment to us all I was very proud 

of the way in which the Club conducted 

itself on that day and indeed in the busy 

days and weeks which followed, that 

included much negotiation with both the 

BCCI and ECB. Nothing can properly 

make up for missing such an enticing 

Test Match at our great home, but I am 

confident that the Team has handled 

things as well as possible. 

We have since secured ourselves seven 

days of international cricket at Emirates 

Old Trafford next summer – One Day 

Internationals against both South Africa 

and India – before we welcome the 

Proteas back to Manchester for a Test 

match on the August Bank Holiday 

weekend. We are all looking forward to 

showcasing Emirates Old Trafford as an 

international venue once again. 

Off the field, it was fabulous to see 

the return of live music to Emirates 

Old Trafford as 50,000 concertgoers 

packed out our stadium on a Saturday 

night in September to see Manchester’s 

own The Courteeners who produced 

a thrilling show. Next summer, we will 

finally host the long-awaited gig by The 

Killers (postponed since 2020) whilst 

we will also welcome Red Hot Chili 

Peppers and Foo Fighters to Emirates 

Old Trafford. 


Our Conference and Events side of the 

business is also beginning to pick back 

up after an incredibly difficult 18 months 

and I know that our dedicated team of 

staff are working hard on what is one of 

our busiest periods throughout the year. 

The off-field business at Emirates Old 

Trafford should not be underestimated 

and is hugely important to the long-term 

sustainability of Lancashire Cricket. 

Finally, it was with deep sadness that 

myself and the Club learnt of the 

passing of one our Board Members, 

Maurice Watkins, back in August at the 

age of 79. I first met Maurice during our 

time together at Manchester United. 

He had a real passion for sport and 

dedicated large parts of his life to 

serving in various roles across the 

sports industry and beyond. I also had 

many positive interactions with Maurice 

during his roles with British Swimming 

and British Basketball on our National 

Olympic Committee, in my role as CEO 

of the British Olympic Association. 

On the Board here at Lancashire Cricket 

since 2012, Maurice combined that 

passion for sport with his legal expertise 

to advise and provide invaluable 

support to the Club on a number of 

important projects and issues. 

His presence on the Board, and as a 

friend and colleague, has been sorely 

missed in the months since his passing. 

On behalf of Lancashire Cricket, I would 

once again like to extend our deepest 

sympathies to Maurice’s family and 

friends. 

I wish you all a good winter, I hope that 

you enjoy the festive period with your 

loved ones, and we look forward to 

welcoming you back to Emirates Old 

Trafford in 2022. 

Kind regards, 

A.Anson 

Andy Anson 

Chair of Lancashire Cricket 


Daniel 

Gidney 

— CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER — 

I 

t has been another incredibly 

busy year at Emirates Old 

Trafford, and while the early 

part was obviously COVID-19 impacted, 

I firmly believe that it has been a year 

of progress and positivity, both on and 

off the field, which sets us up for a 

huge year in 2022. 

First and foremost, after the difficulties 

of lockdown in 2020 and early this year, 

it was a superb effort to navigate our 

way through an uninterrupted domestic 

season whilst also seeing international 

cricket and live events begin to return to 

Emirates Old Trafford. 

One of the most challenging moments 

of the summer was obviously around 

the hugely disappointing cancelled India 

Test Match. It was one of the hardest 

moments of my career and absolutely 

devastating for the Club, but more 

importantly for all those ticket holders 

who were impacted. As we said at the 

time, after the last 18 months we have all 

had to endure due to the pandemic, this 

year’s Test Match was worth more than 

the monetary value. 

In the days and weeks following, we 

worked very closely with the ECB 

and BCCI on what would happen 

next. The Club is still discussing with 

the ECB around appropriate support 

and compensation and whilst it is 

disappointing not to be able to host 

the India Test Match, we are delighted 

to be hosting three internationals next 

year with ODI’s against South Africa and 

India, in addition to the South Africa Test 

Match. 

I know that Glen will provide a more 

in-depth review of the season just 

gone and the squad’s plans for the 

winter – but I just wanted to place on 

record my thanks to Glen, all of his 

staff and our playing squad for their 

efforts throughout the summer and for 

providing us with some unforgettable 

moments on the way. We are all hungry 

to bring silverware to Emirates Old 

Trafford; we are moving in the right 

direction, and I look forward to watching 

the continued progression of this young 

and ambitious playing squad. 

Also moving in an upwards trajectory is 

women’s cricket. And after their busiest 

domestic summer on record, I feel 

that women’s cricket in the North West 

region is in a really strong place, with 

our Thunder side at the forefront of that. 

Under the guidance of Head Coach Paul 

Shaw and his staff, our five contracted 

players made huge strides and 

improvements throughout the summer, 

and it was fantastic to see another one 

our own in Emma Lamb join Kate Cross 

and Sophie Ecclestone in England’s 

international squad to make her debut 

against New Zealand. 


IT HAS BEEN GREAT TO 

SEE THE FEEL GOOD 

FACTOR, WHICH 

HAS BEEN CREATED 

AROUND WOMEN’S 

CRICKET, GROW IN THE 

LAST 12 MONTHS 

It has been great to see the feel good 

factor, which has been created around 

women’s cricket, grow in the last 12 

months. This was taken to another level 

during The Hundred and it was fantastic 

to see our players lead the way on the 

opening night at The Kia Oval; Lamb 

opening the batting, Kate Cross striking 

the first six, Alex Hartley returning to 

the biggest stage and a new generation 

of heroes such as Georgie Boyce, Ellie 

Threlkeld and Hannah Jones being 

introduced to the world. 

We have since announced that we have 

retained our previously contracted five 

of Boyce, Hartley, Jones, Lamb and 

Threlkeld. In addition, we have added 

homegrown player Laura Jackson – 

following an impressive breakthrough 

summer – as well as seam bowler 

Phoebe Graham who has made the 

trip across the Pennines to join us 

from Northern Diamonds, based at 

Headingley. 

We are proud that we’re the only First- 

Class County to have converted our 

away changing room for use by Thunder 

and Lancashire Women. This will provide 

the players with a permanent base 

at Emirates Old Trafford for training 

throughout the winter as well as during 

their home matches here. Work is 

currently underway to decorate the 

changing room with Thunder branding, 

player names and more. 

In addition to this, during both of our 

doubleheaders at Emirates Old Trafford 

in the summer Lancashire Women – 

and then Thunder – had first use of 

a new pitch before the men’s Vitality 

Blast game in the evening. We hope 

that this can set a precedent for this to 

become more common place across 

the game. 

We have also committed to paying our 

non-contracted players for their training 

hours as well as offering pay as you play 

deals which we hope can help support 

our players and increase their available 

time with us. 

Finally, with Lancashire Cricket funding 

two extra playing positions (one will be 

an overseas player) in addition to the 

ECB contracts, we are providing David 

Thorley, Paul Shaw and their team with 

further resources at their disposal to be 

able to keep cricket in the region on an 

upwards trajectory. 


As you will have seen on the news 

in past few weeks, cricket has been 

making the headlines for all the wrong 

reasons. As a game, it has not been 

doing enough to ensure that it is a sport 

for everyone and that people from all 

backgrounds, beliefs and genders feel 

welcome and included at all levels of 

cricket. With that in mind, I wanted to 

update you on some of the work we 

are doing here at Lancashire Cricket to 

continue to make Emirates Old Trafford 

a more inclusive and diverse place 

where everybody feels welcome, safe 

and respected. 

The Club is currently working on an 

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) 

Strategy which will apply across the 

whole of the business and shows our 

commitment to developing a cricket 

club that is fully inclusive with staff 

representation from all sectors of 

society. Earlier in the year, we were 

delighted to appoint former Lancashire 

batsman John Abrahams to our Board 

of Directors. His love of the Club 

and extensive cricket experience is 

invaluable and John will also help 

us improve our standing in the wider 

community that we represent. 

We are proud of the gender diversity 

within the business with six women 

holding positions on the Board and 

Executive Roles within the Club and we 

also feel that our work with the Thunder 

and Lancashire Women’s teams in the 

past couple of years has helped to put 

our female players on an equal standing 

alongside our men’s team. 

As a Club, we recognise that there is 

much more work ahead of us particularly 

with BAME communities but hope that 

together with the rest of the First-Class 

counties and the ECB, we can make 

cricket a sport which connects with 

everybody. 

Our live stream offering – for both men’s 

and women’s cricket – has been taken 

to new a level over the past couple of 

seasons and it is something which we 

are immensely proud of. Our journey 

with award-winning, Media City-based 

Badger & Combes started in 2020 

with the aim to bring Members and 

supporters closer to Lancashire Cricket 

during lockdown and behind-closeddoors 

cricket. This season we opted 

to continue with our free, multi-camera 

service for all home fixtures and 

selected away matches, incorporating 


pre-match shows, live hosts and pundits 

as well as post-match reaction. Over the 

course of the season, we had 5.5 million 

views across the live stream and have 

also been streaming on the Jio and Fan 

Code platforms, straight into India. 

It was a significant moment to see that 

our home match against Yorkshire in the 

LV= Insurance County Championship 

was chosen for live broadcast by 

Sky Sports Cricket, who worked in 

collaboration with our team at Emirates 

Old Trafford to plug the gap for viewers 

which had been left by the curtailed 

Indian Premier League. As a Club, we 

look forward to continuing to enhance 

our live stream and improve our digital 

offerings with the launch of Lancs Media, 

the digital arm of Lancashire Cricket, 

coming soon. 

Off the pitch, the Club has just recently 

returned from a post-season commercial 

tour of Dubai. The travelling delegation 

included current Lancashire players 

Keaton Jennings and Kate Cross as 

Lancashire Cricket – in conjunction 

with our Principal Partner Emirates – 

activated at the ICC T20 World Cup and 

the Expo 2020 Dubai. 

It was fantastic to take a small part of the 

Red Rose out to the UAE and particularly 

into the Sports, Fitness and Wellbeing 

Hub of the Expo at which we decked 

out the cricket nets in red and adorned 

with the Red Rose as Keaton and Kate 

delivered two superbly attended cricket 

masterclasses. The masterclasses 

brought people of all ages, 

backgrounds, and cricketing abilities 

together to hear from two professionals 

before trying their hand in the nets and it 

was wonderful to see so many engaging 

with our sessions and curious to find 

out more about Lancashire Cricket and 


Back in June, we were delighted to 

receive news that following a planning 

meeting held at Trafford Town Hall, 

Lancashire Cricket had received 

approval from Trafford Council for a 

new venue redevelopment project at 

the stadium. The new project includes 

plans for a 100-bed hotel extension, 

1,025-seater stand, a heritage centre, 

a guest services hub, and a new retail 

store facing directly on to Brian Statham 

Way. The new stand, which replaces the 

Red Rose Suite, will include enhanced 

pitch-viewing facilities for Lancashire’s 


Members, comprising a dual-aspect 

suite located within the spectator 

viewing terrace. 

This redevelopment will play a key role 

in the Club’s long-term financial strategy. 

The revised plans provide greater 

revenue generation opportunities in 

the short and long term and, crucially, 

enable us to upgrade Emirates Old 

Trafford’s facilities, increase our overall 

capacity and improve the event-day 

experience for all venue visitors. Work 

is set to commence in early 2022 with 

its completion anticipated for the start 

of the 2023 cricket season and what 

better way to show off our newest 

addition than by hosting an Ashes Test. 

In a further exciting new chapter for the 

Club, and indeed the county itself, plans 

are currently being finalised alongside 

Lancashire County Council for our 

second ground project development 

in Farington, near to Preston, which 

will create a high-quality new sports 

facility in the heart of the county. This 

is an extremely exciting project which 

will provide Lancashire Cricket with a 

long-term second ground and a place 

for our women’s, men’s, Second XI 

and Academy players to play, train and 

base themselves at when Emirates Old 

Trafford is unavailable. 

The proposals include two full-sized 

cricket pitches with natural sloping 


terraces and training facilities, a pavilion 

including a gym, changing rooms, 

hospitality space, as well as cycle and 

car parking. The new facilities will 

support the development of community 

and recreational, youth and elite 

sport in Lancashire. The plans include 

opportunities for wider community 

use of the facilities, encouraging more 

people to get involved, in addition to 

a centre of excellence for women’s 

cricket across the North West. Whilst 

there is still a long way to go - and the 

project is subject to public consultation 

and Lancashire County Council 

approval throughout the process – 

this is something we are dedicated to 

achieving. We can also confirm that 

we will still be using the Club’s current 

outgrounds moving forward, in addition 

to the Farington facility. 

I think you will agree that it is an 

exciting time to be part of the Red Rose 

and I hope that you enjoy the winter 

period as we continue to take the 

next steps in our journey together as 

a Club. 

Best Wishes, 

Daniel Gidney 

Chief Executive Officer 


Glen 

Chapple 

— MEN’S HEAD COACH — 

I 

t’s been a couple of 

months since we finished 

this year’s campaign and 

that’s given us all time to reflect on 

the summer as a whole and an 

opportunity to look ahead to next 

year. 

Overall, we can look back with 

pride at the cricket we played this 

summer. We played some highquality 

cricket in all formats, but 

particularly in red ball. There were 

a number of hard-fought victories 

in the LV= Insurance County 

Championship, particularly looking 

at games against Kent, Northants, 

Yorkshire and then Hampshire in the 

final week. Finishing second in the 

Championship over the course of 

the summer was a really good effort 

from everyone involved. 

I think that day at Liverpool will live 

long in the memory for our group, 

as well as the many Lancashire fans 

who were there that day. It was 

an incredible game of cricket and 

to get over the line and win that 

fixture showed a huge amount of 

character, desire, and skill. I’ve got 

to admit that the final hour or so 

was horrendous to watch but to win 

that game really optimised the spirit 

within our group. 

We were clearly outplayed 

the following week against 

Warwickshire, but looking back 

now, I think we put so much in over 

the course of those three days at 

Liverpool, the guys were spent. It 

was a disappointing way to finish 

what was a really strong season 

for us and the Bob Willis Trophy at 

Lord’s was probably just one game 

too many for the group. 

As a team, we were generally very 

consistent throughout this year’s 

County Championship and there 

were some outstanding individual 

performances. I think you’d look at 

Tom Bailey with the ball who was 

brilliant once again and deservedly 

named as our Player of the Year. He 

is probably now the finished article 

in terms of red ball cricket and has 

been consistent for quite some time 

now. To finish with 51 wickets at an 

average 18.72 was another strong 

campaign for Tom. His career-best 

figures of 7/37 in the final game 

of the season at Liverpool had a 

huge say in us winning that game. 

In addition, his 3/6 from 14 overs 

against Yorkshire at Emirates Old 

Trafford was one of the most skilful 

and effective new ball bowling 

performances I’ve seen for a while. 

With the bat, Josh Bohannon had a 

superb season hitting 878 runs from 

15 games at an average of 48.77. 

In those 15 games, he only batted 

20 times due to a high number 

of weather-impacted fixtures this 

summer, which if we’d have played 

full matches, I would have expected 

him to have scored ‘over the 1,000 

run-mark’. Josh’s two centuries 

were naturally very impressive, but 

it was his consistency this year that 

was great to see, particularly as 

we moved him to bat at four, rather 

than three which he had done the 

year previous. His form saw him 

earn a thoroughly deserving call-up 

to the England Lions squad to tour 

Australia alongside the main Ashes 

group and I hope he enjoys that 

experience, continues to learn and 

we see further improvement to his 

game next summer. 

There were so many other 

outstanding individual performances 

too - throughout the season - and 

it’s difficult to mention them all, but 

Luke Wood and Danny Lamb getting 

their maiden hundreds at Kent was 

special in a fighting partnership to 

help us wrestle back control of the 

match. 

We also saw some other 

outstanding batting performances 

and centuries throughout the 

season, which included Steven 

Croft against Northants, Keaton 

Jennings hitting hundreds in both 

Roses games, Dane Vilas’ huge 189 

against Sussex and it was a great 

moment to see Luke Wells get his 

first hundred for the Club away at 


Somerset on a difficult Taunton 

pitch. Jack Blatherwick effectively 

made his debut for the Club in the 

same game and was excellent 

and showed his potential moving 

forward, taking six wickets in the 

game too. 

Saqib Mahmood continues to 

impress in all formats, and his 

five-for against Yorkshire was a 

just reward for all of his hard work 

and efforts. Likewise with Matt 

Parkinson, it was good to see him 

develop once again with the red 

ball. One of the stand outs from 

his campaign was bowling over 

50 overs in the second innings 

against Kent where he took seven 

wickets to win us the game. They 

both received deserved England 

recognition during the summer in 

the ODI and T20 series against 

Pakistan and they have a huge 

opportunity to impress with the 

Lions in Australia this winter. 

James Anderson is always worth a 

mention! I think he averaged seven 

in the matches he played for us this 

summer, which is just ridiculous. The 

Kent game at Emirates Old Trafford 

was probably one of the best spells 

of bowling I’ve ever seen. Jimmy 

ended up taking 7/19, including 

his 1,000th First Class wicket. That 

was a special day and I know all 

of the lads were thrilled to see him 

reach such a special landmark while 

wearing the Red Rose. 

In the Vitality Blast, we played some 

good cricket, and to reach the 

knockout stages once again was 

just reward for our performances in 

the North Group. We were obviously 

hugely disappointed with our defeat 

in the quarter final at Taunton and 

we’ll certainly be looking to improve 

on that next year. Meanwhile in 

the Royal London Cup, nine of our 

players featured in The Hundred, 

which obviously gave opportunities 

to some of our younger players 

in the squad. Danny Lamb’s 

performances were consistent with 

bat and ball across all matches, and 

it was nice to see George Balderson 

and Jack Morley step up and put 

in some good performances. We 

missed out on qualification on 

Average Points Per Game, which 

was frustrating and whilst we started 

well, it was of course disappointing 

to miss out in the manor that we did 

in that final game against Essex. 

Looking forward, the squad are 

now back in training at Emirates Old 

Trafford. In the most part, training 

will be primarily based around 

strength and conditioning. Last 

year was the fittest and strongest 

Lancashire team I’ve seen and that 

has come from the work everyone 

has done, particularly during and 

post lockdown last year. Of course, 

the players will be working on parts 

of their game in the Indoor Centre, 

but it won’t be until January where 

we’ll really start to work on cricket. 

We are looking at a pre-season tour 

next year, which will give the players 

an ideal opportunity to increase 

workloads and work on their game 

outside. 

I would like to use this opportunity 

to thank the whole coaching set up 

here at Emirates Old Trafford for 

everyone’s total commitment and 

efforts this summer, including our 

dressing room attendants Nunny 

and Ash - and scorer Chris Rimmer 

- who do so much for us behind 

the scenes. In addition, our Sports 

Science and Medical Team who 

are, in my opinion, the best in the 

country at what they do. We’re very 

lucky to have them and are they are 

the true unsung heroes of the Club. 

Here at Lancashire, we always want 

to see young, home-grown players 

come through the Lancashire 

system and over the last couple 

of years we’ve continued that 

where we’ve seen the likes of Jack 

Morley, George Balderson and Tom 

Hartley all come into the team and 

impress over the last two years. It 

is something that I strongly believe 

in. It’s also pleasing to see George 

Bell sign his first rookie contract 

this year. He’s been involved in the 

Second XI throughout the summer 

as well as featuring regularly for 

England at Under 19s level. We’ve 

been impressed with George 

as a player and as a character 

and look forward to following his 

development in the coming years. 

We’re really excited to be 

welcoming Phil Salt to the Club, 

signing from Sussex on a threeyear 

contract. He is an extremely 

talented player who I know is 

looking forward to getting stuck in 

with the group. His record in whiteball 

cricket is impressive and he’s 

keen to improve his red-ball game 

too. 

I would also like place on record my 

thanks to Alex Davies, who has left 

the Club to move to Warwickshire. 

Alex has served the Club very well 

over the past decade since coming 

through the age-group system and 

Academy ranks before making his 

First Team debut aged 16. He has 

performed consistently for the Club 

over the past six years and we wish 

him all the best for the rest of his 

career. Ed Moulton, Owais Shah and 

George Burrows have also left the 

Club at the end of their contracts 

and just like Alex, we wish them the 

best moving forward. 

It would be remiss of me not to 

thank Paul Allott for his contribution 

to the Club, as Director of Cricket 

since 2017. He’s been a big part 

of this Club for a long time, and I 

know how much Lancashire Cricket 

means to him so I’d like to thank him 

for all of his support and hard work. 

And in the same token, welcome 

Mark Chilton who is the new 

Director of Cricket Performance. 

He’s deserving of the role, is well 

suited and has all the experience 

and qualifications to be successful 

in the position and I’m looking 

forward to working with him. 

Finally, on behalf of all the players 

and coaching staff, thank you to all 

our Members and supporters for 

your fantastic backing again this 

summer. It was great to see so many 

of you back at Emirates Old Trafford 

once the COVID-19 restrictions lifted 

earlier in the summer and it really 

does make such a big difference to 

the players. 

Winter well over the next few 

months and we look forward to 

seeing you in April! 

Kind regards, 

Glen Chapple | Head Coach 



David 

Thorley 

— REGIONAL DIRECTOR OF WOMEN’S CRICKET FOR THE NORTH WEST — 

W 

hat a 12 months it has been for the 

women’s game! It’s hard to put into 

words just how far the game has come 

in recent times – the profile, the investment 

and, importantly, the playing standards have 

kept improving and we are incredibly excited 

to see where we are in another 12 months’ 

time. 

The Thunder squad - made up of the best players 

from Lancashire, Cheshire and Cumbria - has just 

started training again in the Indoor Cricket Centre 

at Emirates Old Trafford and will train three times 

per week throughout the winter. Access to world 

class facilities and world class coaching has been 

huge in the development of the players and 

another exciting winter of training will further push 

the players on. 

The players have never had this level of training 

year-round previously and they are grasping the 

opportunity with both hands! Head Coach Paul 

Shaw has planned the winter programme based 

NOW THAT THE DUST 

HAS SETTLED ON THE 

2021 SEASON, WE 

CAN LOOK BACK AND 

BE HAPPY WITH THE 

PROGRESS WE HAVE 

MADE 

on each player’s individual requirements and, with 

such a young squad, it will be fascinating to watch 

the players develop over the coming months. 

With Tim Boon, Stephen Parry, Cookie Patel 

and Craig White all spending time coaching the 

players, we have some significant knowledge and 

experience to tap into. 

Now that the dust has settled on the 2021 season, 

we can look back and be happy with the progress 

we have made and knowing that we were 

competitive in most games played across both 

Lancashire and Thunder. 

Lancashire Women, of course, won the North 

group in the ECB 2021 Women’s County 

Championship which kicked season off and 

also won a good showcase T20 match against 

experienced international opponents Ireland at 

Emirates Old Trafford in July. 

The Thunder squad played the Rachael Heyhoe- 

Flint Trophy (50-over) and Charlotte Edwards Cup 

(T20) from May to September and demonstrated 

significant improvements from 2020. 

However, we lost several close games, and the 

players are frustrated we didn’t win more across 

the season. This hunger to win will be key in 

taking us to the next level in 2022 but we have 

lots of lessons from 2021 we have learnt from. 

Our batting, particularly in the first half of the 

season, was a big step up from 2020 and it will 

be one of the focus areas across the winter as 

we seek to post more competitive scores and 

manage the match to chase down totals. 

There were many highlights from the season, but 

two that stand out were the wins against Northern 

Diamonds at Headingley and against Sunrisers 


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at Emirates Old Trafford. For the players to go 

to Headingley and win was a huge moment for 

them, knowing they can compete with and beat 

the best teams in the country. Emma Lamb starred 

with bat and ball, scoring 58 then taking 4-13 with 

the ball. The entire team played well that day but 

also noticeable was one of our younger players, 

Sophia Turner, taking 1-4 from her four overs, 

a fantastic spell that put the pressure on their 

batters. 

The match against Sunrisers at Emirates Old 

Trafford was a great opportunity for the squad to 

play a double header alongside Lancashire Men 

and enjoy the atmosphere of a busy world-class 

ground. To the delight of the crowd, Lamb went 

unbeaten scoring 111, including 14 boundaries, as 

she put on a great display together with Georgie 

Boyce (34) and Ellie Threlkeld (26*). Thunder 

scored the highest score of the competition, 186/1, 

then bowled Sunrisers out for 115 with Kate Cross 

and Lamb the pick of the bowlers. 

The team struggled to pick the momentum back 

up after The Hundred, but it was pleasing to 

finish the season with a win against the Charlotte 

Edwards Cup winners, South East Stars, in 

Beckenham. 

The domestic season was paused to make way 

for The Hundred and 11 Thunder players helped 

comprise the Manchester Originals squad. This 

was, of course, a new competition and format 

and we were opening up the competition live 

on television at the Oval, so it brought pressure 

but also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the 

players to make history. 

The competition didn’t start well, with the team 

losing the first three fixtures and then suffering 

an abandoned match but the side finished 

strongly and won three of the final four matches. 

Manchester Originals finished fifth in the table, 

just one point off a spot in the knockout stages, 

so it was an impressive finish to the competition, 

with Lizelle Lee, Lamb and Cross all making 

match winning contributions. 

We had high ambitions and the squad were 

disappointed not to win more matches, but 

the players have all had chance to reflect on a 

fantastic experience and be part of this game 

changing moment for women’s cricket. The 

competition was featured regularly on terrestrial 

television, making it accessible to millions of 

people and we hope that this has inspired more 

people to come and watch women’s cricket and 

to light sparks of interest in the eyes of young 

fans who will go out and play our great game. 

As mentioned, we are excited about the Thunder 

squad continuing to develop and the training 

they can access regularly. We had five contracted 

players in 2021 (Boyce, Lamb, Threlkeld, Alex 

Hartley and Hannah Jones), but I am very excited 

that the ECB have funded another contract which 

we have offered to Laura Jackson and Lancashire 

Cricket have further supported our programme by 

funding an additional contract which has enabled 

us to sign Phoebe Graham from the Northern 

Diamonds. 

The contracts enable the players to focus on 

cricket and it will be great to have both with 

us going forward. We want to keep taking the 

women’s game forward and this investment and 

approach to women’s cricket by the Club has 

been essential and is incredibly well received. 

The players know they have a really good 

opportunity with winter training now, which will 

be both challenging and rewarding. They have 

only had one winter training as this group so we 

know we can keep developing and aim to be 

more competitive in every game we play, playing 

an attractive brand of cricket in front of healthy 

crowds. 

It has been pleasing to see Lamb rewarded with 

her form with an England call-up in the summer 

and we know that more Thunder players will earn 

that call-up in time too. 

David Thorley 

Regional Director of Women’s Cricket for the 

North West 


MARK 

CHILTON: 

NEW DIRECTOR 

OF CRICKET 

PERFORMANCE 

Mark Chilton has had some big jobs whilst 

wearing the Red Rose down the years; batter, 

captain and coach. Now, he is set for another, a 

brand-new challenge, as the county’s Director 

of Cricket Performance. You could conceivably 

view it as his biggest job yet. 



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tournament that brought in record crowds when it was 

launched this summer. 

As the helmet safety partner for professional teams and 

organisations worldwide, Masuri worked to produce a 

range of painted helmet designs for each of the eight 

teams in The Hundred, showcasing the colours of the 

competition to a new audience while keeping safety 

and protection for players the top priority. 

Masuri developed striking textures and colours for the 

team helmets in a high-quality painted finish, matching 

the players’ on-field clothing to deliver an impressive 

visual impact. 

Sam Miller, CEO of the Masuri Group, said: “We are 

delighted to be working with the England & Wales 

Cricket Board to deliver a range of helmets that supports 

the inaugural competition with a truly new look.” 

The innovative designs complement Masuri’s existing 

commitment to market-leading protection for players 

through its range of helmets and patented StemGuards, 

as well as the tailored service that ensures each piece 

of equipment is properly fitted for optimum comfort 

and performance. The popularity of the painted designs 

on the helmets in The Hundred has seen a number of 

creative ideas being rolled out in Australia’s WBBL and 

BBL competitions, aimed at further appealing to new 

cricket audiences and increasing participation in the 

game at the grassroots level. 

“In Masuri, we are partnering with a market leader who shares our ambition to throw 

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show off the teams’ colours… bringing the excitement of 100-ball cricket to fans.” 

James Brown, Senior Commercial Manager for The Hundred

C 

hilton replaces Paul 

Allott, the Red Rose’s 

outgoing director 

of cricket of four years. It 

is a tinkered title and role 

for the former Manchester 

Grammar School pupil and 

employee who made his 

Lancashire first-team debut in 

1997, played more than 420 

times across all formats and 

won the Championship title 

immediately before retirement 

in 2011. 

The 45-year-old may be, 

to coin a phrase or chant 

commonly used in the 

football stands, ‘One of our 

own’. But he could hardly 

be more qualified to take on 

responsibility for all elite and 

pathway cricket at the club. 

Supplementing his vast 

experience on the cricket 

side of things, he also 

completed a Masters in 

Sporting Directorship, gaining 

a Distinction from Manchester 

Metropolitan University. He 

was in the same cohort as 

Ashley Giles, current Lincoln 

City football manager Michael 

Appleton and Steve Round, 

who is part of Arsenal’s senior 

coaching set-up. 

“I did the Masters about five 

years ago, which was geared 

towards the administrative 

side of the game, learning 

about governance in high 

performing organisations,” 

explained Chilton. “You don’t 

put yourself through a twoand-a-half-year 

Masters, which 

is pretty hard work, if you don’t 

ultimately see that potential in 

yourself.” 

The process from expressing 

interest in the post to being 

appointed was approximately 

three to four months. Chilton 

continued: “When the news 

came out that Paul was 

finishing, I put my name in the 

hat and came through a fairly 

rigorous process, which was 

a big learner for me and very 

interesting. 

“It’s probably a job, or certainly 

the style of job, that I’ve had 

an eye on for a while now with 

regards to progressing my 

career, and I’m delighted to 

have been appointed.” 

The former opener, whose 

most recent title was 

performance director and 

assistant coach, has been 

a visible presence as Glen 

Chapple’s right-hand man at 

first-team matches. But he has 

also led the drive to nurture 

young Lancashire talent, 

taking over that responsibility 

from Gary Yates. 

“Ultimately, my focus will be 

largely around the men’s, the 

women’s and the pathway,” 

he said. “I looked after the 

pathway really. But I will be 

taking an overall, strategic 

view of all things performance 

based within the men’s and 

women’s game. It’s a broad 

role and a really exciting one.” 

Two areas of huge importance 

stand out for Chilton to get his 

teeth into. One is maintaining 

that successful flow through 

the pathways, another is 

supporting the development 

of women’s cricket within the 

county. 

On the pathways, he said: 

“My belief, and I talked about 

this throughout my interview 

process, is that a considerable 

amount of uncertainty exists 

at the higher level of county 

cricket with your better county 

players once they get into 

the realms of pushing for ECB 

commitments and everything 

else that is coming alongside 

that now, with franchise 

cricket. 

“With that, you know that any 

strategic planning you do 

comes with an element of 

uncertainty around it. 

“My view, and I think the view 

of most people at the Club, 

is that to mitigate against that 

you have to have an almost 

continuous stream of talent 

coming through. Almost an 

oversupply of cricketers 

is the best way to sustain 

some success over a period 

of time. 


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“We’ve always had a good 

pathway. Coming in two years 

ago and looking at how we 

did things, I’ve got my teeth 

into it and restructured certain 

things that we do. We will just 

continue to try and push that 

forward. We have some really 

good foundations to build on.” 

On the women’s side of things, 

he said: “That’s an element of 

the job I’m most excited about. 

It’s not a world I know that 

well. I’ve been immersed in 

men’s professional cricket for 

the last five years. 

“We have connected a bit 

more with the women’s 

pathway in the last two 

years, and I have spoken 

to Paul Shaw and David 

Thorley (Thunder head coach 

and director of cricket) a 

reasonable number of times. 

But it is an area I’m really 

looking forward to learning 

more about and then trying to 

offer some support to really 

drive things forward. I think 

that is perhaps the biggest 

opportunity I have with this 

role.” 

One area where Chilton 

will take a step back from is 

the day to day coaching he 

has been doing in recent 

years: “That will leave a 

hole, and that will be one 

of the first things I’ll get my 

teeth into over the next 

few weeks,” he said to the 

media when his appointment 

was first announced at 

the start of October (it was 

actually after the final day 

of the Bob Willis Trophy 

final against Warwickshire 

at Lord’s). 

It means another change 

in the working relationship 

between Chilton and Chapple. 

Or does it? 

“I don’t see my relationship 

with Glen changing very 

much,” he said. “It hasn’t 

changed that much for 20 

years. I’ve captained him for 

a bit, he’s captained me, and 

then I suppose I’ve been 

working under him for four 

years in his role as head 

coach. 

“I think we’ve been through 

a lot together, and there is a 

deep respect for each other’s 

strengths. I think in many ways 

we complement each other 

quite nicely, and that’s why it’s 

worked very well. 

“I’m there to support, to 

guide and to try and set 

some strategic planning in 

place with the head coach 

around how we’re going to 

be successful and how we’re 

going to go from being an allround 

strong team this year to 

winning some trophies.” 

Clearly, Chilton has worked 

extremely hard at perfecting 

his skills throughout a 

distinguished career both on 

and off the field. However, one 

thing he hasn’t had to work 

hard on is his love for the Red 

Rose. 

He added: “To be a kid who 

was brought up in Sale, a 

couple of miles from Emirates 

Old Trafford, and who’s been 

given this responsibility now 

is pretty mind-blowing in lots 

of ways. 

“I’m pretty proud of the 

journey I’ve been on in 

captaining the club and now 

having the responsibility of 

driving Lancashire Cricket 

forwards. I think everyone 

who knows me understands 

my passion for the club, and 

I’m humbled and honoured to 

have this opportunity.” 



JAMES 

ANDERSON: 

1,000 

FIRST-CLASS 

WICKETS 

Written by Sam Dalling and first appeared in The 

Cricketer Magazine… 


I 

n whatever unit you are 

measuring it, 1,000 is a 

serious number. In years 

you have a millennium; in grams a 

kilo; in pounds a grand. But in 

first-class wickets? 

Well, there you have a once in 

a generation seamer: Jimmy 

Anderson – James to his mother, 

she never has quite accepted 

that one. 

Fittingly Anderson was sporting 

Lancashire colours when he had 

Heino Kuhn caught behind in the 

middle of a staggering opening 

spell against Kent. He became 

the first seamer to reach the 

landmark since Andy Caddick 

in 2005, and the first England 

bowler since Robert Croft two 

years later. 

Penning a piece on Anderson 

should be easy but it is in fact more 

difficult than one might think. What 

is there left to say? 

Anderson’s Burnley roots are well 

known: a fervent supporter of the 

town’s football club and a Freeman 

of the Borough. Soon his name will 

adorn a street. Sport is the lifeblood 

of the area, his family name woven 

deep in its tapestry. Father Michael, 

cousin Lee and uncle Neil were all 

first team cricketers at Burnley CC, 

while Michael currently captains 

Nelson Golf Club, a short drive from 

the town. 

Burnley CC – situated adjacent to 

Turf Moor – is steeped in cricketing 

history. Fifteen times Lancashire 

League champions, it counts many 

a pro among its graduates, including 

Jonathan Clare, Mark Harvey and 

David Brown. Chris Casper, a former 

Manchester United footballer who is 

now sporting director at Salford City 

FC, and the Mullin brothers – John 

(Sunderland, Burnley, Accrington 

Stanley) and Paul (Morecame, 

Accrington Stanley) – are also 

among the club’s alumni. Jimmy, 

though, is the favourite son. 

Anderson was best friends with 

David, whose brother Michael 

Brown was a few years above 

him. – Michael himself made 

148 appearances for Surrey and 

Hampshire before serving more 

recently as Burnley CC chairman. 

“Jimmy, my brother and a lad called 

Gareth Halley were the kind of 

16-year-olds who would try and 

sneak into town and have a couple 

of beers,” Brown recalls. “They were 

very much partners in crime when 

they were younger. 

“Jimmy played a lot of sport and 

was like he is now: lean and a good 

athlete. You can see that with the 

way he has fielded. He has always 

been a good mover. We were 

always playing against each other 

in car parks, on the field, just like 

you do. The standard was pretty 

reasonable for that age. We had 

three or four junior county players, 

of which at that time Jimmy wasn’t 

one, although he was relatively 

close. 

“There was always subconscious 

competition because we were all 

good cricketers and our families 

grew up at the club. In the summer 

you were down there at every net 

practice messing about with wind 

balls, and putting water on the 

grass to try and bowl rapid. Just 

lots of fun times.” 

In the 1990s, Burnley found 

themselves falling agonisingly short 

of silverware, resulting in a 37-year 

gap between their 13th and 14th 

Lancashire League titles. By the 

middle of that decade, frustration 

boiled over and there were major 

changes at the club. 

The exit of several first team players 

opened doors for the juniors. “At 

15 Jimmy started to break into the 

senior sides,” says Brown. “By 16 the 

swing was developing and the pace 

noticeably picking up. You’d go: 

‘Jeez, this is now getting quick’. Like 

any young bowler he would bowl 

four balls, but he swung it and had 

raw pace.” 

Still though it was not enough 

to catch Lancashire’s attention, 

Anderson being overlooked for the 

under-16 trials. It took a phone call 

from Brown’s mother, Val, to John 

Stanworth, then-academy coach 

to get him noticed. A year later 

Anderson was in Burnley’s first XI. 

“Once Lancashire took notice 

he made his way pretty quickly,” 

says Brown. “Between 15 and 17 

the change wasn’t anything to do 

with his action. He just got bigger, 

stronger and went from bowling 

75mp to 87mph bowling outswingers. 

“They called him the pro-killer. He 

got Martin van Jaarsveld in 1999 

with an absolute jaffa that pitched 

on middle, swung and seamed 

away. Van Jaarsveld was the only 

bloke good enough to actually nick 

it. He just bowled magic balls, in 

between the odd attempt to pitch it 

on leg and hit the top of off that got 

smacked through midwicket.” 

Anderson also dismissed a future 

coach that year in the form of David 


Saker who was proing for Enfield, 

as well as West Indies’ Neil McGarrell 

and New South Wales star Brad 

McNamara. He finished the season 

– his first full year in the first team 

– with 43 wickets at 21.33. In 2000 

he took 48 wickets at 20.33. Ears 

pricked up. 

Coinciding with the start of 

Anderson’s career was the winding 

down of Mike Watkinson’s. After 

666 appearances for the county 

and a handful of England caps, he 

took over as manager of the cricket 

department in 2001. 

“We had a 19-year-old Jimmy and 

a 17-year-old Kyle Hogg,” he says. 

“Kyle knocked length out and was 

consistent. To offset that you have 

Jimmy who was tall, willowy, twangy 

and athletically built. He would run 

up pretty quick, had a lot of rotation 

and his head would be looking at the 

ground after release. He was a bit 

unpredictable and you would have a 

punt on more bowlers like that than 

you need as not everyone is going 

to make it. 

“But when you get an absolute 

diamond who it just clicks for then 

you have a potential world-beater 

or somebody to give you top-class 

service in county cricket as a bare 

minimum. That is what we had with 

Jimmy. It was exciting because he 

had the raw ingredients: pace, an 

energy and enthusiasm, a hunger 

to learn. He is an inner thinker of 

the game, albeit in an extremely 

introverted persona at the time.” 

Stanley Park, Blackpool, was the 

venue for Anderson’s first taste of 

professional cricket on September 

6, 2000. His opponents that day 

were a strong Surrey side led by 

Alan Butcher and also containing Tim 

Murtagh, Gareth Batty, and Michael 

Carberry. 

Anderson in his book Bowl, Sleep, 

Repeat describes his first delivery 

as the worst he has ever bowled, 

deciding this was the time to 

introduce a jump at the crease. He 

destroyed the stumps at the wrong 

end and finished sprawled across the 

wicket. His figures were 0 for 72 from 

16 overs. 

Anderson’s first-class bow also 

came against Surrey, at Old Trafford 

in May 2002. For a young quick 

it was daunting, the championselect 

boasting a batting line up 

containing Carberry, Ian Ward, Mark 

Ramprakash, Ali Brown and Rikki 

Clarke. 

“Sometimes these protégé players 

come through your ranks and are 

earmarked as superstars of the 

future,” explains Warren Hegg, who 

was Lancashire skipper in those days. 

“Jimmy definitely wasn’t one of those 

– he snuck through the backdoor 

really. No one had seen much of him 

until he trained with the first team, but 

then it was obvious that he had sheer 

out and out pace. Pace gets good 

players out, it always will. 

“In those days it was kind of speak 

when you are spoken to. Get on and do 

your job. I think that suited Jimmy. He is 

not one for speaking when he doesn’t 

feel he needs to. That is his persona. 

He was told what was expected of him 

and got his head down.” 

Back then though Anderson was 

a very different type of bowler, 

and the fields set were a far cry 

from what he has now: “We quickly 

learned what his strengths were 

and went from having three slips, 

two gullies, short leg, man round 

the corner, to a more defensive 

field where he was able to just let 

himself go,” Hegg continues. “He 

had the attacking fielders but also 

the protection out on the boundary 

for his lose delivery outside the 

off stump. I can recall many a time 

where he had people caught at 

the cover point boundary flashing 

at wide fast balls, which ordinarily 

you wouldn’t have to a bowler like 

Jimmy now with his control.” 

Ward was Anderson’s maiden 

first-class wicket, and by end of the 

summer he had reached 50 in only 

13 games. “I remember a game at 

the Rose Bowl when the pitch was 

in its infancy,” recalls Watkinson of 

one encounter where Anderson 

took nine wickets. “He was hitting 

people on the grill off just short of a 

length. People were asking where 

this kid had come from?” 


One enduring quality is Anderson’s 

competitive nature. Hegg chuckles: 

“We had centre-wicket practice at 

Emirates Old Trafford toward the 

end of my career – my eyes were 

going! Jimmy was in one of those 

moods. He didn’t want to talk much: 

he just wanted to do his job, have 

his session and then go. I bore the 

brunt of that. I remember facing him 

with an old ball, on a used wicket, 

and he kept hitting me on the toe. I 

couldn’t hit him. 

“I was captain of the club but there 

was no quarter given. He was letting 

me have it properly for the benefit 

of his own game. I don’t think my 

big toe has recovered. He always 

wanted a little bit more from his 

career. I would hate to have played 

against him.” 

Two decades on, nothing has 

changed. Jon Lewis, England’s 

pace bowling lead, worked with 

Anderson during the tours to Sri 

Lanka and India earlier in 2021. “In 

Sri Lanka I asked him to bowl a fiveover 

spell in the nets. He bowled 

absolutely outstandingly well and 

he hadn’t missed his line and length 

for 29 balls. And then the last ball 

– in a spell where he had been all 

over the batsmen – he bowled a 

drag down ball and got pulled. He 

absolutely lost it with himself and 

stormed off. That pretty much sums 

him up. He is someone who wants 

to get it right every single time.” 

Anderson finished the 2002 

summer with 50 wickets at 22.38. 

Decent returns, especially as until 

June he had only been playing in 

the Lancashire League. On April 21, 

2002, he picked up 3 for 51 from 

12.1 overs at Bacup CC, a small town 

with a population of approximately 

13,000 on the Yorkshire border. 

On 15 December that year, he took 

the new ball for England in an ODI 

against Australia at the MCG. Adam 

Gilchrist was his first international 

wicket. 

By February 2003 he was playing 

in the World Cup, a devasting 

spell in England’s 112-run victory 

over Pakistan seeing him remove 

Inzamam-ul-Haq and Yousuf 

Youhana for golden ducks. He 

missed out on a hat-trick but finished 

with 4 for 29 from his 10 overs. 

“That was as close to seeing 

him bowl for England in the way 

Burnley knew him,” explains Brown. 

“Those magic balls where he got 

Inzamam and Yousuf, we would see 

one or two of those every week. 

He wouldn’t always get a wicket, 

but you would go: ‘Oh my God’. It 

bridged the gap for a lot of people 

watching: we knew we hadn’t been 

playing with a club bowler, we were 

playing with someone bordering on 

a world-class level of ability.” 

The steep ascent continued during 

the English summer; a central 

contract in April; a Test bow against 

Zimbabwe in May (his first over 

contained two no-balls, leaked 

three boundaries and cost 17 runs, 

although he recovered to take 5 

for 73 in 16 overs, Mark Vermeulen 

his maiden Test victim); and the 

first man to take an ODI hattrick for 

England in June. 

Anderson featured in seven Tests 

that summer, claiming 26 wickets at 

31.57. But there was constant noise 

about his action: between the end 

of the that summer and the start of 

April 2008, he played just 15 Tests, 

taking 44 wickets. 

“You see it with most young players 

cricketers who get picked early for 

England,” explains Ian Bell. “You’re 

going to have a little down-periods 

but you’re doing it in the limelight. 


“Jimmy had that follow-through 

that Sky kept talking about all the 

time. They said you can’t bowl like 

that and that he had to change it: 

when you are a young and hear 

experienced guys – maybe heroes 

of yours growing up – saying that 

you take a little bit on board. That’s 

only natural.” 

In 2005 Anderson returned to 

county cricket’s relative tranquillity, a 

full season with Lancashire yielding 

60 wickets. There he was once 

again under Watkinson’s watchful 

eye: “As a youngster Jimmy just ran 

in and did whatever was natural 

for him. But as soon as you are 

someone who can bowl quick 

England are looking at you. You 

fall into an area where you are 

managed by a county, but England 

have influence on you. Through that 

process he did a little refining but 

not necessarily one that produced 

benefits out on the field. It was 

though perhaps considered safer.” 

But all that tinkering took its toll, a 

stress fracture ruling Anderson out 

for almost the entire 2006 season. 

It turned out to be his sliding doors 

moment. “Rather than thinking: 

‘Shit, this might be the end of my 

career’, it was: ‘Right how am I going 

to use this to make myself a better 

cricketer when I come out the other 

side?’” says Watkinson. 

“Jimmy had ownership of it and what 

he wanted to do was re-introduce 

some of the early rotation he had as 

a young fast bowler. When he came 

out the other side he was stronger 

and more physically robust. He had 

worked hard at it and felt a little bit 

more comfortable in his own action. 

That give him that nice repeatable 

platform for his skills, using his 

fingers, the swing of the ball and his 

tactical nous to produce what he is 

now.” 

“There is never a straight line of 

improvement,” reflects Bell. “You 

have to go through that journey 

in your career. He went full circle, 

back to what is natural. And the next 

thing was he took off and never 

looked back really. You’ve got to 

get comfortable in who you are 

and what you do first though and 

when the great players find and 

understand that, they take off don’t 

they? Look at Steve Smith. I think 

Jimmy did that. His skill level, well 

there is nobody better.” 

“He never takes to the field unless 

he is 100 per cent prepared,” 

explains Watkinson. “I can’t 

remember him ever bowling at a 

first-class batsman without knowing 

something about him in advance. 

“Even later on in his career, if he 

has had an injury or needed a 

game of cricket and was playing 

in the second team, Jimmy 

asked our youngsters about the 

opponents – whether they had 

played any England schoolboys 

against them, what their strengths 

and weaknesses were. He’d be 

asking an 18-year-old not who is not 

necessarily contracted how one of 

the opposition plays so he could 

work out his plan accordingly. When 

he first started, we did have team 

meetings and plans but his level of 

preparation and homework…. well, it 

got to a stage very quickly where he 

was driving it.” 

In the second innings of the first 

Test in India this year, Anderson’s 

double-wicket maiden removed 

Shubman Gill and Ajinkya Rahane 

to open the door for a famous 

England win. It was his first over of 

the day, and he struck with just his 

second ball. Gill, well set on 50, 

was left bemused when Anderson 

found the smallest of gaps between 

bat and pad to send off-stump 

cartwheeling. 

Next was Rahane who, having been 

set up with one the moved away, 

failed to react quickly enough to 

an in-ducker and was pinned legbefore. 

Anderson ended with 3 for 

6 from his five overs, the eighth time 

in his Test career he had snared 

three wickets in such a short spell – 

all of them coming since 2015. 

It was a remarkable period but did 

not just happen: the work started 

long before that morning. “The 

interesting thing about that over 

is the preparation he put into it,” 

explains Lewis. 

“Three or four weeks earlier, 

when we got to Sri Lanka, he had 

explained to the rest of the bowling 

group what he wanted us to do and 

how we needed to do it. I promise 


you he went into minute detail 

about how to get the ball into the 

right condition to reverse. Things 

like making sure you knew where 

the drips of sweat would come off 

your head and keeping your hands 

and the ball away from that. Those 

are the things people don’t really 

understand about trying to get the 

ball in the condition to move in that 

climate. 

“And that was really the first time 

over the course of the three Test 

matches (including the two in 

Sri Lanka) that we got the ball to 

reverse. Who was the person to get 

it right? Jimmy: he was the guy with 

the ball in his hand, and was able 

to execute at the right time to win 

the game for England. That’s what 

makes him so special.” 

Mark Wood has shared a dressing 

room with Anderson for much of the 

past five years, and recounts a time 

where, even mid-Test in St Lucia, 

Anderson was still tinkering in a bid 

to improve. “We are about half-way 

through the Test and batting. Jimmy 

goes out to the nets and changes 

his run-up because he is not happy 

with it. Second innings he gets three 

or four wickets. You have to be so 

in tune with your body to be able to 

change your run-up mid-Test match 

and also have the courage to pull 

it off. 

“He is constantly asking coaches 

about his run-up speed, his 

technique, how he felt. It’s not just 

about how it looks, it’s about how it 

feels. His attention to detail isn’t all 

about technique – he thinks about 

how it feels intrinsically.” 

Lewis has the unenviable task of 

trying to coach the master. How 

does he do it? “You listen to him,” 

he says simply. “You listen to what 

he has to say because he knows 

what he is doing, and you bounce 

ideas around with him. And if you 

ask him a question you’ve got to be 

prepared to be challenged because 

he has put the time in himself to 

have the information. 

“Does he need a coach? Not really. 

Does he rely on a coach? Definitely 

not. Does he like having a coach 

about? Yes, because it is someone 

to talk to and discuss things with. 

The way you help him is to be 

available for when he wants to have 

a discussion. Even if things are 

going well, you want to stimulate 

thinking about what could be next 

and how to get ahead.” 

For years the myth that Anderson 

only does it at home in favourable 

conditions has been peddled, with 

people saying the skies and surface 

needing to align for him to succeed. 

Perhaps in the very early part of his 

career, there was a kernel of truth 

to that, his wickets outside England 

costing 45.6 runs apiece. Very few 

cricketers though don’t need a 

little time to adjust to the rigours of 

international cricket and performing 

in alien conditions. 

And for more than a decade, 

Anderson has been exemplary 

abroad: 230 Test wickets split 

between Australia – 60 wickets at 

35.43; India – 34 wickets at 29.32; 

New Zealand – 26 wickets at 32.81; 

South Africa – 34 wickets at 34.62; 


Sri Lanka – 18 wickets at 33.28; UAE 

– 22 wickets at 20.55; West Indies 

36 at 24.81. 

Against a career economy rate of 

2.84, 375.4 overs in India have cost 

only 2.65 runs an over, while in Sri 

Lanka his economy rate is just 0.03 

runs higher than his 2.85 in England. 

In the Caribbean, it drops to 2.58, 

while in the UAE it is 2.09. 

There have been a few subcontinent 

lows: there were six 

boundaries in an over against 

Sanath Jayasuriya in 2007 and he 

was left out of England’s final Test 

during the 2016 India tour. Already 

2-0 down, workload management 

was cited but he had gone 

wicketless for the previous two 

games and his four series’ wickets 

cost 53.5 each. But on the flip side 

there have been plenty of highs, 

including 12 wickets as England 

secured a historic victory in India in 

2012-13. 

“The thing that people sometimes 

don’t understand is that when you 

go to India, Jimmy is more of a 

defensive option,” Bell says. “Your 

attacking options are your spinners, 

so his role slightly changes and his 

field settings too. Yes, he is trying to 

get a wicket with the new ball but 

then it is about creating pressure for 

(Graeme) Swann or (Monty) Panesar. 

He did that other part of it incredibly. 

To get 12 wickets on pitches like that 

in a series like that is an incredible 

achievement.” 

“I think ‘in awe’ is a good way to 

describe watching him bowl on 

the sub-continent,” admits Tim 

Bresnan, who lined up alongside 

Anderson during his England career. 

“I wouldn’t say it was easy but in 

home English conditions, we knew 

how to get results. When it came 

to bowling on the sub-continent 

though Jimmy would hit another 

level. He found an extra gear. He 

would bowl a little bit quicker but 

still swing and seam it. I’m standing 

there thinking: ‘I haven’t moved one 

off the straight for two months, and 

Jimmy is nicking people off for fun’. 

At that point the difference between 

him and everyone else becomes 

apparent.” 

And on the idea that Anderson was 

a green track bully? “To be honest, 

in the written media especially, 

we’d always laugh at what they 

wrote. Some of it was quite accurate 

but the bits that sold the paper or 

grabbed the headlines, most of the 

time was total bollocks,” Bresnan 

says. “That is what it is designed to 

do though isn’t it?!” 

“I don’t know where that comes 

from honestly,” Wood agrees. “He 

might not get five-for every week, 

but he helps everybody else. He 

controls the rate, he bowls with 

great skill, and then batters have to 

take chances against other people 

because he is keeping it so tight 

and asking so many questions all 

the time. There’s never a let-up. 

“And he is constantly talking to me 

at mid-on, mid-off. He was a massive 

help in hot conditions. The little 

things he would say – it wasn’t just 

about tactics – things like: ‘Come 

on pal, pick your legs up, amazing 

effort, snap at the crease, one more 

time’. He doesn’t have to do that 

when he is knackered himself, but 

when it was red hot that kept me 

going. He is a big, big help on the 

field.” 

“I met him properly only when I 

walked into the England dressing 

room for the first time,” recalls 

Bresnan. “I didn’t really know him 

and thought: ‘I’m not sure what to 

do here’, with the old Yorkshire- 


Lancashire rivalry.” He pauses, 

bursts out laughing and continues. 

“He was quite grumpy, quite aloof – 

pretty much the same as he always 

is. That’s the overriding thing when 

everyone thinks of Jimmy Anderson: 

a bit of a grumpy so and so from 

Lancashire. To be fair, if I’d bowled 

that many overs, I’d be that grumpy 

as well! 

“But after a couple of days we got 

on really well which a lot of people 

were quite shocked by. We both 

have similarly dry senses of humour, 

and got closer and closer during 

the time we played for England 

together.” 

More chuckling: “Don’t even bother 

with him in the morning though. On 

tour, you don’t even speak to Jimmy 

until we have got off the bus. You 

just totally ignore him at breakfast 

as you are going to get absolute 

donuts from him. As soon as he got 

off the bus that was it, right ready, 

Jimmy has woken up.” 

Bresnan is speaking as only a close 

friend can. But there is truth in what 

he says – it aligns, or at least did for 

much of his career, with the public 

image Anderson presents. More 

recently though, his Tailenders 

podcast and punditry work have 

peeled back the curtain to reveal a 

little of behind-closed-doors Jimmy. 

That outer grumpiness perhaps 

in part can be attributed to his 

personality type: “An introvert is 

somebody who gathers energy 

from within – he doesn’t need 

the external world to recharge 

his batteries,” explains Watkinson. 

“An extrovert gathers energy from 

the world around him, whereas an 

introvert will need time to reflect and 

process things before presenting 

to others. 

“Jimmy has confidence in himself 

and what he can deliver. But initially 

he is quiet around the place. He has 

had a great upbringing, great family 

values, very respectful, does things 

right. That is what we saw in him as 

a young man. If you look at him now 

– is he an introvert or an extrovert? 

You don’t change, you are one or 

the other and that is it. But if he 

is a true introvert he has certainly 

learned to extrovert and does it 

very, very well.” 

But behind closed doors Anderson 

is one of the beating hearts of the 

England dressing room, never 

shying away from a prank. “He was 

a practical joker – him and Swanny 

together were like a double act 

when you were first in that dressing 

room. You couldn’t do anything off 

guard because they would be all 

over you,” Steven Finn remembers. 

And there is also a generosity of 

spirit to Anderson, a man who goes 

over and beyond for those he holds 

dear and causes he cares about. 

“We are both big Brooklyn Nine- 

Nine fans and the quotes are always 

flying around,” says Wood. “One of 

the loveliest things Jimmy has ever 

done for me was to get a member 

of the cast – my favourite character, 

Boyle, played by Joe Lo Truglio – to 

send me a message for my birthday 

in Sri Lanka. I don’t know how he 

has connections in Hollywood 

but I was blown away.” A hybrid 

American-Geordie accent kicks in: 


“Hey Woody, good luck to you and 

Jimmy on the upcoming tour of Sri 

Lanka.” The sound of Ashington is 

restored: “He was talking about jarfors 

instead of jaffas! I was stunned 

beyond belief.” 

Brown, in his capacity as chairman 

of Burnley CC, has experienced 

that kindness too. “When I took 

over the club was in massive debt 

– knocking on £60/70k. It was at 

a stage where the heating was 

being turned off. Jimmy did a dinner 

for me with Chris Tremlett and we 

raised over £10k. 

“Then I asked him if he would 

sponsor us. It was literally the 

shortest conversation – he just said: 

‘Yep, fine’, and for six years or seven 

years he paid £2,000 of his own 

money and put the Nordoff Robins 

charity on front of the shirt. That’s 

proper money however much you 

earn. 

“From 2016 to 2019 I ran the 

president’s day and he played in 

three of them. At one point he ran in 

properly. There was James Foster 

keeping wicket and Jimmy ran in 

and bowled an absolute jaffa at 

the best player in the Burnley side, 

Vishal Tripathi, who nicked it, Foster 

dived full length and caught it one 

handed about two inches off the 

floor. 

“He always gives his time. He 

presented trophies, we had a 

capped-player night where we 

handed out baggy blue caps to 

all the players who had achieved 

milestones. He must have had 60 or 

70 to present. He couldn’t do more 

when you asked him to. A genuinely 

generous bloke. He never shouts 

about it, he just does it. That is the 

kind of stuff that never gets talked 

about.” 

Anderson will turn 39 in July and 

fast bowling is arduous, taking 

its toll on many a body. “It’s the 

consistency of what he does that 

makes him so amazing,” says Finn. 

“I’ve had injuries which have then 

affected my action, which have 

then affected what I can do as a 

bowler. I’ve played only a handful 

of the Test matches he has – his 

combination of longevity and skill 

makes him truly special. People can 

pop in and do it for a year or two, 

but he has been able to do it over 

18 years or something silly. That, and 

the fact that the threshold of what 

he can achieve is a lot higher than 

everyone else in the first place, sets 

him apart. Those two things make 

him a once in a generation bowler.” 

There is no real sign of let-up, and 

with careful management he could 

continue for some time yet. “Old 

is gold,” as Bresnan puts it. “His 

skills are phenomenal, aren’t they? 

It’s credit to him that he is getting 

better. He is getting wiser if you like. 

He knows exactly when to attack 

and when to defend a little bit. 

You can see why he has that many 

wickets. He never misses, he never 

relieves the pressure. Very rarely 

does he give freebies out.” 

“We talk about perfectionism, well 

it surprised me how fast he was 

across the ground in Sri Lanka,” says 

Lewis. “I asked him and he talked 

about how he had been working 

on his running technique. He has 

worked very hard on nutrition and 

his physicality because he knows 

that it is that which will probably 

stop him playing. It won’t be skill 

level, it will be his body so he’s 

worked incredibly hard at it.” 

“What Jimmy has is an unbelievable 

resilience to getting out and playing 

cricket,” explains Bell. “You see 

a lot of good bowlers who don’t 

bowl through the pain barrier or 

hold back a little bit. And you’re 

never going to get that with Jimmy. 

Mentally, physically, he is hard as 

nails. And when he crossed the 

line, he is a serious competitor. 

Whether in a Lancashire shirt or and 

England shirt it didn’t really make 

a difference to be honest – he just 

wanted to win.” 

And once he is gone, well he will 

be forever regarded as one of 

the greats: “In the early 2000s, 

if you had said Jimmy will have 

his own end at the Emirates Old 

Trafford to put him in the same 

bracket as Statham and those 

kind of players? Nah,” says Hegg. 

“But he has surpassed him. He 

is still a top, top man. He has not 

changed one bit. It is privilege to 

have played with him and known 

him as a bloke. He is an absolute 

dream for the Red Rose brand. He 

will do anything to help promote 

our county, which is imperative in 

these days.” 

And he’s not done yet. 


JOSH 

BOHANNON: 

ANOTHER 

YEAR OF 

PROGRESSION 

Josh Bohannon enjoyed another summer 

thriving in Lancashire’s top-order. His 

performances were rewarded with a seat on the 

plane to Australia, with the England Lions squad 

that will shadow the main touring party. 

Spin Magazine spoke to Josh ahead of the trip 

Down Under… 



J 

osh Bohannon has 

revealed how significant 

work on the mental side 

of the game is helping to progress 

his batting. Lancashire’s highlyrated 

number three is currently 

undergoing a fortnight’s 

quarantine in Australia, where he 

has travelled to as part of his first 

England Lions tour. 

It is apt reward for a 24-year-old 

who was the Red Rose’s leading 

County Championship run-scorer in 

2021 with 853 from 14 matches at 

an average of 53.31, including two 

centuries at home against Yorkshire 

(127 not out) and Warwickshire (170). 

That the Boltonian was not entirely 

satisfied with his contributions 

shows the hunger required to be 

a success at the very top of the 

game. But do not think for one 

minute that Bosh, as he is known 

around Emirates Old Trafford, is 

disappointed with his statistics. 

After all, that is all linked to the 

mental work he has done with club 

psychologist Lee Richardson and 

the chats he has had with coaches 

and former players. 

“The one thing which has worked 

well for me recently is that I’ve 

found a state of mind where I’m 

happy if I succeed, obviously, but 

I’m also content with failure,” he told 

Spin magazine before jetting off 

Down Under. 

“I have spoken to quite a few 

people about it, one being Ian Bell 

during the Bob Willis Trophy final. 

He was saying that you have to 

accept you won’t succeed every 

time, so it’s about parking that and 

going again when you don’t having 

trusted that you’re doing all the right 

things.” 

So how did Bohannon go about 

finding that mental equilibrium? 

“It took quite a period of time, 

and I didn’t find it easy at all,” he 

continued. “It took me a couple of 

years. 

“I was quite up and down as a 

youngster, delighted when I’d done 

well and really took it to heart when 

I didn’t. There was no level ground. 

“Mark Chilton suggested that I 

should do some work with our 

psychologist Lee Richardson. And 

we spent loads of time on the phone 

trying to find ways which suited me, 

trying to find a nice calm place. 

“It’s been about accepting that not 

only will you not always do well, 

but you won’t always succeed 

when you think things are going 

well. Playing well in the nets is no 

guarantee of going out and belting 

a hundred. You’re going to get good 

balls and make mistakes. That’s just 

the game. 

“But I’m at a stage where I’m happy 

knowing that as long as I’ve done 

everything right prior to going out 

to bat, what happens in the game is 

kind of not in my control. Sometimes 

it works out, sometimes it doesn’t.” 

Progression is a word which crops 

up a couple of times during our 

chat, referencing the performances 

of both himself and Lancashire in 

2021, the latter finishing second in 

the Championship. 

“I said that in my appraisal at the 

end of the year,” he said. “I didn’t 

particularly break any pots. I didn’t 

score 1,000 runs, which was 

ultimately my target, or I didn’t score 

three hundreds - another target. 

But this was another thing Mark 

Chilton said. You look at our batting 

stats compared to other counties, 

and we rarely bat twice. I played 14 

Championship games this year and 

batted 18 times. 

“Being realistic, to score 850 

runs having only batted 18 times, 

you have to settle for that. It was 

a development on 2019, and 

hopefully next year I’ll go one 

further. 

“What’s nice is that is that one 

of the hundreds I got, against 

Yorkshire, I did it on TV. And the 

pressure that comes with that is 

a lot more than people think. You 

know people are watching, you 

know people are commenting on 

your technique, your mindset or 

how you’re playing a certain bowler. 

“Warwickshire wasn’t on TV, but 

it was a big game at the start of 

Division One. To go on and score 

a big hundred like that against a 

good attack, one which went on to 

win the Championship, was pleasing 

personally. 

“One thing I’m delighted about 

is that every time I’ve scored a 

hundred, I’ve gone on and not given 

it away. I was 127 not out against 

Yorkshire, and the two times I’ve 

been dismissed with hundreds in 

my career, they have been for 170 

and 174. Hopefully that keeps going 

and I can get up above the double 

at some stage soon.” 

On the team, he said: “It’s not just 

this year, the last two years have 

been progression. If you look back 

to 2020, and this isn’t taking it away 

from them, some of those lads who 

did maybe wouldn’t have played 

given a normal situation. 

“But the likes of Tom Hartley, 

Jack Morley, George Balderson, 

they have all developed. Jack 

Blatherwick is another who has 

come in this year and done really 

well. He’s gone from bowling 

thunderbolts in the nets to doing it 

at Somerset and again at Lord’s. I 

just feel this squad of experience, 

youth and so much talent is very 

exciting. 

“Going back to 2018 when we got 

relegated having played that game 

at Hampshire, missing out by a 

point, Paul Allott said to us, ‘This is 

a two-year road trip to becoming 

Division One champions’. Take 

2020 out of that, we were 24 hours 

away from achieving that. I only see 

us going from strength to strength.” 


Bohannon admits his Lions call 

was not entirely unexpected, but 

definitely welcome. And he is part 

of a significant Lancashire presence 

across both the Lions and senior 

Ashes squad, with Jimmy Anderson, 

Jos Buttler, Saqib Mahmood and 

Matthew Parkinson all having 

travelled. 

“I’m really happy to get the call,” he 

said. “It’s always been something 

I’ve wanted to do, but I knew I had 

to score runs to earn it like I did this 

year. It’s nice to know that I’ve got 

some reward for all the hard work I 

put in last winter and in the summer. 

I can’t wait to get amongst it. 

“I’d had a lot of good conversations 

prior to getting the call, which gave 

me an incline I was going to get 

the nod. But you can’t bank on it. 

To get the final call took a massive 

weight off my shoulders. Hopefully 

I can go and express myself and 

show what I can do in front of a 

different crowd. 

“Hopefully I’ll get to spend a bit of 

time with Joe Root and Jimmy again, 

and I’ll just try and get used to that 

environment. 

“I’ve always wanted to do well for 

Lancs and to play Test cricket. Of 

course, I want to do well in the other 

formats, but to do well in the longer 

format has been number one.” 

The 14-man Lions squad are 

shadowing the Ashes squad prior 

to Christmas, helping them prepare 

and being on standby should any 

Coronavirus issues crop up like they 

did during the summer one-day 

series against Pakistan and a brand 

new squad had to be drafted in. 

No doubt, it is not beyond the 

realms that the boy from Farnworth 

Social Circle could yet play in the 

greatest Test series of them all. 

He said: “You’d be lying if you said 

that it’s never crossed your mind. To 

be out there at the time it’s going 

ahead, anything can happen. But 

I’ve always said this in any interview 

I’ve done, I will just take one step at 

a time and enjoy the moment. I can’t 

wait to get stuck in. 

“If a chance provides itself to play in 

whatever match it is, I certainly won’t 

be backing down. That was always 

one thing my dad (Glen) taught me, 

‘Don’t back down as you’ll get hurt 

if you do’. 

“Whether I get a chance to play or 

not, I’m just really looking forward to 

it. Picking brains and making sure I 

come back a better player, that’s the 

most important thing. 

“My game feels in a good place, 

mentally and skill wise. I’m just 

really excited to get tested in the 

nets against the best of the best. 

I’ve faced Jimmy quite a bit, but 

I’ll hopefully get the chance to go 

up against the likes of Mark Wood, 

those bowlers who bowl 90 mph, 

and see how I face up. 

“That will be the next challenge. 

Can I still execute my skills when it 

gets up and above 90 mph?” 

This chat took place with Bohannon 

on a mid-October Friday afternoon. 

It had been one heck of a tough 

morning for him, as he had been 

to the funeral of a very close friend 

Mick Schofield, who had died 

following a bout of Covid and was a 

keen cricket fan. 

He added: “Some of the messages 

he sent me when he was in hospital, 

he was saying, ‘Keep fighting and 

you’ll win this Championship’. 

Through that Liverpool game, he 

was sending me messages like 

that, ‘Keep going, you’ve got it in 

the bag’. 

“He took a turn for the worse not 

long after that game, and he has 

given me the ultimate fire in my 

belly to never give up.” 



KATE CROSS: 

A WINTER OF 

REDEMPTION 

AWAITS 

After missing out in 2017, the Lancashire and 

Thunder seamer is eyeing a shot at Cricket 

World Cup redemption with England. However, 

there is also the small matter of an away Ashes 

series before then... 


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lancashire cricket

J 

uly 23, 2017. Kate Cross 

sat at Lord’s, watching 

from the stands as 

England won a dramatic one-day 

World Cup final against India. “It 

was tough to watch. Equally, it was 

amazing to watch” was her 

summary of her emotions. 

“It was a really tough time in my 

career - missing out on that World 

Cup squad and then seeing your 

best mates go and lift a trophy at 

Lord’s,” said the Lancashire and 

Thunder fast bowler. “But I set 

myself a goal that day. I wanted to 

be in the next World Cup squad, be 

in the team and help England win 

games.” 

March 5, 2022. In-form Cross 

stands an excellent chance of 

walking out at Seddon Park in the 

New Zealand city of Hamilton when 

England open their title defence 

against arch-rivals Australia. 

Since the start of 2021, the 

30-year-old from Heywood has 

played nine one-day internationals, 

claiming 17 wickets, including a 

superb haul of 5-34 in a win over 

India at Taunton in June. 

The World Cup through March and 

into early April is the culmination of 

one heck of an exciting winter for 

Cross and her international teammates, 

including Thunder’s Sophie 

Ecclestone and, with a fair wind, 

hopefully Emma Lamb too. 

Just before the World Cup, 

England’s women will compete on 

the other side of the Tasman in the 

multi-format Ashes series. 

As far as importance goes, the two 

assignments can’t be separated: 

“The Ashes is a dream as a 

young kid, and so is a World Cup,” 

continued Cross. 

“I’ve been over there and have 

won an Ashes (2014), which is still 

one of my career highlights. It was 

a tough-fought series, and you 

expect nothing less when you go 

over there. We know it’s going to 

be tough, but it’s going to be a 

brilliant series.” 

Cross’s summary of what lies 

ahead stands at “an incredible 

winter”, for which preparations are 

well underway. 

“We’ve had a little bit of time off, 

which is unusual,” continued the 

icon of Lancashire Cricket, who 

travelled out to the UAE with 

club officials in October to help 

promote the Red Rose brand at the 

Dubai Expo and at the T20 World 

Cup. 

“Whilst in Dubai, I was still doing a 

bit of preparation. We have a big 

winter block of about 10 weeks 

training as a squad before we go 

over to the Ashes in January. That 

will be a Test Match, three T20s 

and three ODIs in that multi-format 

series before we go to the World 

Cup.” 

Cross would seem well placed for 

success Down Under following a 

summer which saw her take 40 

wickets in 23 appearances for 

England, Thunder and Manchester 

Originals in the Hundred. 

“I feel really cliched when I 

give this answer, but the whole 

summer was a massive highlight,” 

she said when discussing 

the development of the 

women’s game in general. 

“The Hundred being right 

in the epicentre of the 

summer was incredible 

- the visibility we had 

as female athletes, 

that people came 

to watch us. I think 

women’s cricket is 

in a really healthy 

place, but I don’t 

like settling for 

things and I think 

there are things we 

can improve on.” 

Of those 23 

appearances, 

only eight came in 

Thunder colours: “I 

love getting back to 

Emirates Old Trafford 

and playing for the 

Red Rose,” she said. 

“It’s obviously a little 

bit different now 

with the regional 

structure. We’re the 

Thunder, but we still have the rose 

incorporated into that. For me to 

be able to come back, step away 

from international cricket, and play 

with some of my best mates is 

really good fun. 

“We have a really good young 

team. We have some frustrations 

because we believe we should 

be winning more games of 

cricket than we are, but I think 

we forget how young we are and 

how much development we still 

have to go.” 

Cross name-checked the summer 

performances of all-rounder Lamb, 

who scored two competitive 

centuries for Thunder, plus 

another in a friendly, and claimed 

15 wickets. It earned her a T20 

international debut against New 

Zealand in September. 

She also highlighted another 

all-rounder Laura Jackson, who 

was recently handed a full-time 

domestic contract by Thunder, as 

the perfect example of how the 

women’s game is progressing in 

the North West. 

“She was on the fringe 

of playing in the team 

a couple of years ago 

and is now opening the 

bowling religiously,” Cross 

added. “A big part of it all 

is the continuity we’ve 

got with the coaching. 

“We have Paul Shaw 

as head coach, who I 

think has just signed 

a new three-year deal 

so we know we have 

him for a lot longer, 

we have Stephen 

Parry working with 

the spinners. He is a 

bundle of energy with 

a wealth of knowledge. 

“We also have Craig 

White working with 

us as well. That 

we’ve adopted two 

Yorkshiremen (White 

and Shaw) shows 

the strength of the 

Red Rose at the 

minute.” 


NEW 

SIGNING: 

PHIL SALT 

SITS DOWN 

WITH SPIN 

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E 

ngland limited overs 

international Phil Salt 

admits he was “over the 

moon” to join Lancashire after 

signing from Sussex in late August, 

effectively as a replacement for 

Warwickshire-bound Alex Davies. 

But you could well say that the 

25-year-old wicketkeeper-batter 

was “over the blue moon”. 

For Salt is a lifelong Manchester 

City fan, with his father and his side 

of the family all hailing from the 

Blackley area. 

“I was born in North Wales and 

used to get across to Manchester 

all the time to watch City – back 

in the days of the lower leagues, 

the pretty dire days,” he told the 

Manchester Evening News in 

October 2019, shortly after being 

drafted to play for the Manchester 

Originals in the Hundred. 

City have clearly progressed from 

those days to winning trophy after 

trophy. When discussing his move 

to Lancashire with Spin magazine 

recently, the topic of trophies was 

high on the agenda. But not City 

ones. He was more focused on 

the Red Rose hopes of filling the 

cabinet. 

“This is a great place to play, 

Emirates Old Trafford, it’s a great 

squad and a club with a lot of 

history,” he said when asked about 

his reasons for swapping Hove for 


“I’m really excited to be a part of 

it. The ground, it’s one of the best 

in the world. Also the squad we’ve 

got would have to be one of the 

strongest in the country in terms of 

depth. The possibility of winning 

trophies looks very likely. I think 

it’s something which is just around 

the corner, and I want to be a part 

of that.” 

Salt, whose batting is his primary 

skill, is certainly no stranger to 

challenging for trophies. While 

Lancashire narrowly missed out 

on County Championship glory 

in September, Sussex were 

beaten semi-finalists by eventual 

champions Kent at Vitality Blast 

Finals Day. 

It formed part of an exciting 

summer for the dynamic righthander 

who played his first three 

one-day internationals against 

Pakistan in July with a top-score of 

60 opening the batting. 

He played alongside Saqib 

Mahmood and Matthew Parkinson 

in a standout series victory as part 

of a second-string squad who 

stepped in last minute to fill the 

void after the senior players were 

ruled out due to Covid protocols. 

“It was awesome,” continued Salt. 

“I was actually on standby at the 

time and doing all the safe living 

stuff and the Covid tests every few 

of days. So I had an idea I might be 

going into the bubble. 

“But I didn’t know it would be 

under those circumstances and 

that we’d perform the way we did 

against a team who has proved 

themselves over the last few 

weeks to be one of the best in the 

world.” 

There are some similarities to be 

drawn between the games of Salt 

and his new county colleague Liam 

Livingstone. 

Salt’s career has mainly been 

played out in T20 cricket. He has 

played 111 times in that format 

(2,465 runs with 18 half-centuries) 

compared to 38 first-class and 19 

List A appearances. 

“I’m really looking forward to 

playing with Livvy,” he said, 

admitting that their time together 

playing for Team Abu Dhabi in the 

ongoing T10 League out in the UAE 

can benefit Lancashire’s cause. “It 

will be good to spend a bit more 

time around him and understand 

his game more and work out how 

we’re going to bat together. That 

will be crucial come the summer.” 

Salt will almost certainly bat 

at the top of the order for the 

Lightning against the white ball. 

It is a position he has become 

established in throughout a firstteam 

career which started in 2015. 

But there is not as much certainty 

about where he will fit into the 

Championship batting order. 

He has both opened and batted 

down the order during a 38-game 

first-class career which has brought 

him 1,967 runs at an average of 

30.73 with four centuries, including 

a top-score of 148. 

Wherever he bats, it is a format he 

is determined to master: “Red ball 

is the form of the game which is the 

most rewarding if you get runs and 

perform,” he said. “Test Cricket is 

the aim for any cricketer, I believe. 

“Some who are further on in 

their careers go down the white 

ball route. But I’m nowhere near 

ready to do that and want to give 

everything I can to become the best 

red ball cricketer I can.” 

Salt has moved up to Manchester 

and returned to pre-season training 

with his new team-mates before 

jetting out to Abu Dhabi. 

“It’s been brilliant,” he added. “It’s a 

very professional set-up. It’s been 

hard - it always is when you come 

back after a little break. But, by the 

looks of it, everyone is in a really 

good place.” 


ROYAL 

LONDON 

CUP: A 

QUIET 

SUCCESS 

STORY 

Freelance Journalist Paul Edwards winds back 

to the height of the 2021 summer and looks at 

how - whilst cricket entered one new era - a 

quiet success story played out at outgrounds 

and festivals across the country… 


S 

upporters of county cricket are 

defiantly independent of mind 

and we should be thankful it is 

so. For the first six months of 2021 they 

were told that the Royal London Cup 

would be “a development competition” 

and that no one would care about 

50-over matches between county 

“second teams” during weeks when 

many of their best players were giving 

it large in The Hundred. The media, the 

laziest sections of it anyway, were as 

culpable as one or two officials or the 

self-appointed, self-medicating 

authorities on Twitter. Then in the 

fortnight before the first games were 

due to start we were assured that the 

pandemic would cause the 

cancellation of the whole shebang 

anyway, partly – I liked this one – so 

that disease-free players could be 

available to teams in The Hundred. 

Rarely can a national sporting 

competition have been so flagrantly 

undersold or so little expected of it. It 

made no difference, of course. 

Spectators listened attentively to all 

the guff and went to the matches 

anyway. 

The result was that the Royal London 

was one of last summer’s quiet 

success stories. It turned out that 

folk were rather keen to watch young 

cricketers taking their first steps in the 

professional game, especially so when 

matches were played at outgrounds. 

So Yorkshire loyalists flocked happily 

to Scarborough and York, the Surrey 

faithful turned up at Guildford and 

supporters of both counties arrived at 

Grantham to watch Nottinghamshire 

beat Northants by two wickets with two 

balls to spare. Club officials and their 

bands of volunteers slaved their socks 

off to make each match a success and 

slumped in exhausted satisfaction 

when their day was done. Social media 

featured pictures of packed stands 

along with sarcastic captions about 

nobody watching county cricket. For 

nearly a month there was a temporary 

schism in English cricket between 

those who wanted games to last less 

than three hours and those who were 

content to see a contest unfold over 

an entire day. Astonishingly, every ball 

counted – in both formats. 


It had also been decided that each 

first-class team would play an away 

warm-up match against the national 

county with which it was most closely 

associated. This was a fine idea, not 

least because it gave some of the 

best young club cricketers a chance 

to see what the professional game 

was like. However, fears about the 

pandemic caused most of the games 

to be cancelled and almost all those 

that were played took place at the 

headquarters of the first-class team. 

Displaying splendid independence of 

mind, Lancashire decided that instead 

of playing their match at Carlisle, an 

outground in Cumbria, they would shift 

it to Sedbergh, another outground 

in Cumbria. The main justification, of 

course, was that officials knew the 

new venue very well, having played a 

County Championship there in 2019. 

The subsidiary justification was that it 

was Sedbergh and no one who has 

visited that ground requires further 

explanation. 

Some Jeremiahs feared rain would 

set in over the Howgill Fells and 

last for months. Instead we had the 

hottest week of the year. A very strong 

Lancashire side defeated Cumbria with 

plenty to spare and thus avoided the 

indignity suffered by Glamorgan, who 

lost to the Welsh National Counties 

(Plaid Criced?), and Somerset, who were 

well beaten by Cornwall. Three days 

later the opening game of the Royal 

London Cup campaign was a classic. 

A Sussex team led by Tom Haines 

and containing nine List A debutants 

posted 270 for nine in their 50 overs 

and looked on the way to a marvellous 

victory when Lancashire were 115 for 

seven. At which point Danny Lamb and 

Tom Bailey took charge and shared the 

112-run stand that broke the spirit of 

Haines’ terrific young team. Lancashire 

got home by two wickets with an over 

to spare. Many people, including some 

who had made the long journey from 

Hove or Eastbourne, declared it their 

favourite day of the year. 

July meandered gently to a close. 

There was a victory at Bristol and a 

rain-ruined non-event at Beckenham. 

On August 1 George Balderson’s 

three wickets and Luke Wells’ 66 not 

out steered Lancashire to a victory at 

the Hampshire Bowl but fine bowling 

by Luke Hollman and Ethan Bamber 

inspired Middlesex to a six-run win at 

Emirates Old Trafford. For the most part 

the teams put out by the 18 counties 

were competitive and the youngsters 

selected rarely looked out of place. 

Lancashire were well beaten by Durham 

at Gosforth, where Sean Dickson’s 

76-ball 103 not out helped the home 

side to 327 for six. By now Lancashire 

were being led by Bailey, Dane Vilas 

having been recruited by the Northern 

Superchargers, and were also having to 

cope without Keaton Jennings, who had 

torn a calf muscle against Middlesex 

and would miss the rest of the season. 

The game against Worcestershire didn’t 

get close to starting but there was 

plenty of cricket to watch elsewhere. 

The Lord’s Test was a great match 

and one or two commentators gave 

the impression that matches in The 

Hundred were the finest that had 

ever been witnessed anywhere in the 

universe. 


The concerns of Lancashire supporters 

remained more local. The abandonment 

of Gloucestershire’s game against 

Middlesex because of the pandemic 

meant that positions in Group One 

were now determined by the average 

number of points teams earned from 

each match. But if Lancashire defeated 

Essex in their final fixture at Emirates 

Old Trafford none of that would be 

particularly relevant. For all but one over 

of the game everything went well. Fifties 

by Steven Croft and George Lavelle 

enabled Lancashire to post 250 for six 

in their 50 overs and even an Alastair 

Cook century left the visitors needing 

22 off Croft’s final over of the game. The 

problem was that Simon Harmer has 

built a career out of dealing with crises 

and now he clouted the off-spinner for 

three successive sixes. A scrambled 

two off the last ball secured the tie that 

took Essex through to the knockout 

stages at Lancashire’s expense. A week 

later Glamorgan’s players were dancing 

round Trent Bridge and showing the 

Royal London Cup to their supporters 

having beaten Durham in the final. 

The season offered no more lifeaffirming 

sight. It wasn’t a bad end to 

the competition nobody was going to 

watch. 


SEASON REVIEW: 

A LOOK BACK AT THE 

2021 CAMPAIGN 

It was a case of so near yet so far for Lancashire’s men 

in 2021, while there was plenty to smile about for the 

Thunder side despite no trophy arriving at Emirates 

Old Trafford. The word ‘progression’ relates to both 

sides, and they will be hugely confident of even better 

things to come next summer. 

52 SPIN SPRING 2021


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A 

young and developing Thunder 

side may still view silverware as, 

realistically, a year or two away. 

But Dane Vilas and co will certainly be 

hoping that next September there is 

some need for a tub or two of Brasso! 

After victory by one wicket in that 

Hampshire game at Liverpool in late 

September - it was a final day for the 

ages - Lancashire were in touching 

distance of only their second LV= 

Insurance County Championship title in 

87 years. Unfortunately, Warwickshire 

completed victory over Somerset at 

Edgbaston the following day, pinching 

the crown and consigning the Red Rose 

to second place. 

They then reaffirmed their position at the 

top of the tree the following week with 

a convincing innings and 199-run victory 

over Lancashire in the Bob Willis Trophy 

final at Lord’s. 

While that defeat at the Home of Cricket 

was a frustrating way to end, Red 

Rose performances under significant 

pressure in September bode well. 

Having been beaten by Division One 

leaders Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, 

Lancashire were at the point of no return 

in their title bid. They simply had to beat 

Somerset at Taunton and Hampshire at 

Liverpool and hope results elsewhere 

fell into place. 

Luke Wells starred with a first-innings 

century - his first for the county - and 

three crucial wickets in the second 

innings as Somerset were despatched 

by 10 wickets in front of the Sky 

Sports cameras. Then, who can forget 

Hampshire? 

THE ROSES 

INNINGS VICTORY 

AT EMIRATES OLD 

TRAFFORD IN MAY, 

SECURED DEEP 

INTO THE FINAL 

EVENING, WAS 

FABULOUS 


Tom Bailey - more of him later - 

completed a career best 7-37 at the start 

of day three to set up a chase of 196, 

the highest score of a bowler-friendly 

Aigburth fixture. Then, from 151-4, the 

hosts fell to 194-9, still needing two for 

victory. Step forward captain Vilas, facing 

the left-arm spin of Liam Dawson. Scott 

Read can talk you through the rest: “He 

sweeps, he SWEEPS, HE SWEEPS FOR 

FOUR!!!” 

Lancashire had qualified for Division One 

of the Championship by finishing top of 

Group Three in the initial Conference 

phase, winning four of 10 matches and 

pipping Yorkshire to top spot by a point. 

The Roses innings victory at Emirates 

Old Trafford in May, secured deep into 

the final evening, was fabulous. 

The Red Rose missed out in both the 

Vitality Blast and the Royal London Cup, 

though qualified for the quarter-finals 

once again in the former before defeat 

against eventual finalists Somerset at 

Taunton. 

That a young side, shorn of a host 

of senior heads due to the Hundred, 

missed out on the knockouts in the 

RL50 can be seen as one of the 

disappointments of the season given 

they had started their Group One 

campaign with three wins out of their first 

four games before failing to win any of 

their final four. 

They were still on course for qualification 

when Essex, chasing 251 in the final 

group fixture at Emirates Old Trafford, 

needed 22 off the final over with two 

wickets in hand. Unfortunately, Simon 

Harmer clobbered three successive sixes 

to set up a tie which eliminated the hosts. 

Still, the likes of Danny Lamb and Jack 

Morley impressed through the monthlong 

competition. 

Like Aigburth, the opening day win over 

Sussex at sun-kissed Sedbergh in July 

was a highlight of the summer, with Lamb 

and Bailey sharing 112 for the eighth 

wicket to recover a chase of 271 from 

115-7. Lamb made a stunning 86 not out 

and Bailey 45. 

Through April and May, Lancashire’s 

women won all four of their completed 

T20 fixtures - the other four were rained 

off and they later beat Ireland’s women 

in a friendly at Emirates Old Trafford. 

Their early season performances proved 

ideal preparation for the start of regional 

action with the Thunder. 

The Thunder hierarchy started the 

season talking up the development of a 

young and inexperienced squad rather 

than going all guns blazing for trophies. 

They wanted to build on two wins from 

six games in the shortened summer of 

2020. And it was a goal achieved. 

Alex Hartley’s side claimed particularly 

notable wins over Central Sparks 

and South East Stars in the Rachael 

Heyhoe Flint Trophy. At the time, Sparks 

were top of the table and previously 

unbeaten, while the Stars had just 

claimed the Charlotte Edwards Cup T20 

title. In that CE Cup, Thunder also went 

56 SPIN SPRING 2021

into the lion’s den which is Emerald 

Headingley and brought home the points 

thanks to victory over the Northern 

Diamonds. 

The latter fixture was memorable for 

a starring performance from Emma 

Lamb, who hit 58 at the top of the order, 

claimed 4-13 with her off-spinners, took 

a catch and affected a run out. Fledgling 

seamer Sophia Turner also returned 

outstanding figures of 1-4 from four overs 

in a low-scoring game. 

Lamb later hit a stunning T20 century 

in an Emirates Old Trafford win over 

Sunrisers. In all, she hit three competitive 

centuries for Thunder and Lancashire 

(four if you include friendlies), earned 

an England senior debut in a T20 

international against New Zealand and 

won the Player of the Year awards for 

both of her domestic sides. 

Other players to impress include two 

more all-rounders, England’s Kate Cross 

and Laura Jackson, and left-arm spinner 

Hannah Jones. The latter earned herself 

an England A call-up in late August. 

The former will likely be involved in the 

Ashes and the one-day World Cup in the 

New Year. 

While qualification for the latter stages of 

the RHF Trophy was never realistically on 

the cards, it certainly was in the Charlotte 

Edwards. Heading into the final round of 

group games, Thunder were still in the 

hunt to reach Finals Day at Southampton. 

Unfortunately, a heavy defeat against 

Diamonds at Chester Boughton Hall put 

the kibosh on those thoughts. 

While Lamb claimed the Thunder and 

Lancashire women’s Player of the Year 

awards, new ball seamer Bailey did 

likewise for the Red Rose men having 

taken 50 Championship wickets, 

including that aforementioned sevenfor 

against Hampshire in the final week 

of the season. He also claimed 10 

wickets from seven Royal London Cup 

games and was handed the honour of 

captaining the side in that format when 

regular skipper Vilas departed for some 

Hundred action. 

We should also not forget other 

highlights. 

Matthew Parkinson’s ‘new ball of the 

century’ against Adam Rossington in 

the early season Championship win 

over Northamptonshire at Emirates 

Old Trafford is one, Jimmy Anderson 

claiming his 1,000th wicket in the home 

draw against Kent when he rattled 

through their batting with a stunning 

career best 7-19 is another. And, 

finally, congratulations should go to 

Josh Bohannon who, in mid-October, 

was handed his maiden call-up to the 

England Lions squad to tour Australia 

and shadow the senior Ashes squad. 

Bohannon, 24-years-old, scored 1,147 

runs across all formats for Lancashire in 

2021, including Championship hundreds 

against Yorkshire and Warwickshire at 

Emirates Old Trafford. George Balderson 

is another young gun who enhanced his 

reputation. 

Roll on 2022, it is all set up to be a 

special year. 


PAUL ALLOTT 

REFLECTS ON 

DIRECTOR 

OF CRICKET 

TENURE 

A magnificent servant to Lancashire Cricket, as 

player, Board Member and finally Director of 

Cricket. Paul Allott reflects on his concluding role 

with the Red Rose… 



P 

aul Allott leaves his role as 

Lancashire’s director of cricket, 

held since 2017, with a lot of pride 

at what has been achieved by the county 

during that time. The former Red Rose and 

England fast bowler was in charge of 

development on the field, though has 

hailed work done off it as well to 

significantly advance the county’s cause. 

Allott’s association at Emirates Old 

Trafford is nearing 50 years as, first, a 

player and then administrator. He made 

his second-team debut in 1975 and, while 

he has stepped down from day-to-day 

involvement, he will remain involved with 

the Club on a consultancy basis. 

“I will be working on special projects and 

will be working a bit with Lancashire TV 

and the streaming,” explained the former 

BBC and Sky Sports broadcaster. “I’ll also 

be doing some interviewing and promoting 

the club both nationally and internationally. 

Of course, I will also be around to offer any 

cricketing advice should I be asked.” 

I’D CERTAINLY 

LIKE TO 

THINK THE 

PROFESSIONAL 

ELITE SET-UP IS 

STRONGER NOW 

THAN IT WAS 

WHEN I STARTED 

Allott laid down his microphone full-time to 

replace Ashley Giles in a more enhanced 

role when the Blast-winning coach opted 

to return to Warwickshire in late 2016, with 

a conversation with Sir Howard Bernstein 

paving the way for his appointment. 

“I’d been broadcasting since 1993 with 

various companies. I started with the 

BBC, went to Sky and worked with other 

broadcasters around the world,” said 

Allott. “Virtually all of that time I was on the 

committee and the board. There was a little 

period in early 2000 when I wasn’t. 

“How it all came about was when Ashley 

decided he wanted to move on, we were 

charged with trying to find a successor. 

And there weren’t many that appealed to 

the board. The president rang me one day 

and said, ‘Have you found anybody?’ 

“We didn’t really want to go overseas. And 

the president said, ‘Well, you’re looking in 

the wrong place - you could be the man, 

you are the man’. I initially said, ‘You’re 

joking’. But I thought about it and decided 

it would be a challenge I wanted to give 

a go.” 

Lancashire have been without major 

silverware during Allott’s time in post, but 

that is by no means a sole measure of 

success. 

“I’ve had a great time,” he said. “I loved 

the re-association with the players. I 

thought we were successful, but not quite 

successful enough. We developed some 

pretty robust polices about our philosophy 

in developing cricketers through our own 

age-groups and Academy. 

“I think we saw development of our 

homegrown players and had a nice blend 

with players brought in from outside, which 

I think is the way forwards. And I’d certainly 

like to think the professional elite set-up is 

stronger now than it was when I started. I 

really enjoyed it.” 


Obviously Coronavirus threw up 

challenges, but Lancashire met them 

with gusto. Allott went on: “What I would 

say is that through that period, I thought 

we were remarkably resilient across the 

board, especially the backroom staff in 

keeping us able to function on the cricket 

side of things. 

“Off the field, it’s ironic and fortunate that 

the club had made a policy decision to 

diversify away from purely cricket and 

into Conference and Events and the onsite 

Hilton Garden Inn hotel. One of our 

biggest strengths actually turned into one 

of our biggest weaknesses. 

“However, had we not done that, we 

wouldn’t have been able to stage the 

behind-closed-doors international 

matches we did through 2020 in what 

a bio-secure environment was. It’s 

testament to the hard work of everyone 

that we have come through that period in 

the healthy state we have.” 

Lancashire suffered relegation from 

Division One of the County Championship 

in 2018, but an inspiring speech from the 

Director of Cricket after the final game 

of the season against Hampshire at the 

Ageas Bowl went a long way to ensuring 

the squad was back on the right path 

very quickly. 

Josh Bohannon has referenced it in his 

feature in this publication, describing a 

“two-year road trip to becoming Division 

One champions”. Take out 2020 for 

Covid and it was an aim oh so nearly 

achieved. 

“I said to the lads, ‘This isn’t the end’ 

when we got relegated. I wanted it to be 

the beginning. I think that’s proven to be,” 

said Allott. 


CHRISTMAS 

DRAW 2021 

★ FIRST PRIZE - £1,000 ★ 

★ SECOND PRIZE - SIGNED ENGLAND CRICKET BAT ★ 

★ THIRD PRIZE - JAMES ANDERSON ‘1,000 WICKET’ MONTAGE ★ 

PLUS TWO PLACES AT A ‘LUNCH WITH A LEGEND’ IN 2022 

FOR TEN WINNERS AND THEIR GUESTS. 

TICKETS NOW ON SALE 

Please contact 0161 868 6849 

or email lancashireline@lancashirecricket.co.uk 

Draw to take place on Monday 20 December 2021. 

For winning numbers visit lancashirecricket.co.uk/foundation 

Promoter Mr G Porter, Lancashire Cricket Foundation, Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester M16 0PX T 0161 868 6845 

Lancashire Cricket Development Association trading as Lancashire Cricket Foundation. 

Registered with the Gambling Commission, Operating Licence No. 5180.

“We continue to be successful in all 

formats. Critics will point to the fact we 

haven’t won anything. But we have 

maintained a degree of success in all 

formats which stands with any county in 

the country, especially when you look at 

the way we develop our cricketers. Josh 

Bohannon is one example, as is George 

Balderson. It will give me a great deal of 

pleasure watching them in the next few 

years to see how they get on.” 

Allott very much had a watching brief 

during the final Championship game 

of this summer against Hampshire at 

Liverpool. He agrees that the 48 hours 

of the final day and then waiting to 

see if Somerset could hold on to deny 

Warwickshire were both a highlight and a 

lowlight of his time in charge. 

“Absolutely,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve 

ever felt emotion like it at Liverpool. 

The struggle to win the match to get us 

into a position where we could win the 

Championship was something I’ve not 

experienced before. 

“There were times as a player when 

we won one-day trophies and came 

second in the Championship in 1987. 

There was drama and incident all the 

way through. But the position I was in in 

terms of Director of Cricket, I’ve never 

experienced anything like that before.” 

Allott’s playing career highlights included 

being part of five trophy successes with 

the Red Rose. “We won the Benson and 

Hedges Cup in 1984, but the period from 

’88 onwards through to the end of my 

career we were pretty damn successful,” 

he said, in reference to further triumphs 

in the B&H Cup, the NatWest Trophy, the 

Sunday League and the Refuge Cup. 

“I also enjoyed my England career, 

obviously. There were some pretty good 

moments in that. Winning the Ashes in my 

first Test was pretty decent!” 

Allott’s future consultancy work with the 

Club will see him utilise his broadcasting 

acumen to help drive the already 

successful live streaming service which 

Lancashire provides for members and 

supporters. It is an area which could 

prove absolutely vital for the future of 

county cricket. 

“The take-up has been extraordinary with 

the number of hits, etc. The coverage 

that Lancashire produce has been 

lauded throughout the country and by 

no less than Sky’s production team. 

When they covered a game earlier this 

year during the Roses Championship 

fixture at Emirates Old Trafford, they 

were hugely impressed by production 

and camera work. Everything we did was 

top drawer.” 



SIR CLIVE 

LLOYD: 

LEADING A 

LANCASHIRE 

REVIVAL 

Taken from the Wisden Cricket Almanack, an 

article from the early ‘70s which documents Sir 

Clive Lloyd’s arrival at Lancashire and his role in 

leading a Red Rose revival 


F 

aptured the public imagination in 

the manner of Clive Hubert Lloyd. 

This tall, bespectacled all-rounder, 

short-sighted but by no means 

handicapped by the affliction, joined 

Lancashire two years ago and has played 

a leading part in the revival of cricket at 

Old Trafford where crowds are now big 

again and enthusiasm is ever growing. 

Born in Georgetown, British Guiana, on 

August 31, 1944, and christened Clive, 

Lloyd would be the last to proclaim that 

his signing from the Lancashire League 

club, Haslingden, had anything more than a 

passing significance. He would, of course, 

be wrong. No cricketer has made a greater 

impact on his county than has Lloyd on 

Lancashire. He has set an example with 

the bat, the ball, and in the field, that has 

inspired every other member of the team 

and the staff at Old Trafford to strive for 

similar perfection. 

The Lancashire captain, Jack Bond, is ever 

ready to pay tribute and says: “the very 

fact of playing alongside Clive has been an 

inspiration. No fieldsman prowls the covers 

with greater menace; no man throws with 

more power or accuracy. With the bat few 

hit either so hard or so often, and with 

the ball Lloyd is always likely to break a 

partnership or snatch a valuable wicket. His 

value to Lancashire cannot be measured 

by ordinary standards.” 

Lloyd is a cricketer who does things by 

instinct. He learned the game – as so many 

West Indies cricketers do – in the streets 

and backyards of his native Georgetown 

with the help of his one brother and four 

sisters who were roped in to help retrieve 

the many balls Clive dispatched into other 

backyards and streets farther afield. 

A man of some 6ft 5in with a reach that 

enables him to dictate a length to every 

bowler, Lloyd won a place in the Demerara 

School team as a ten-year-old and at once 

made it apparent that here was a boy with 

tremendous cricketing potential. He had 

a natural ability to hit hard and bowl either 

fast, medium or slow. He would spin the 

ball from the start and took a lot of wickets 

as a right-handed leg-spinner who batted 

left-handed and fielded so brilliantly that 

stealing or even taking a reasonable run 

to him became a hazardous risk. It has 

remained so. 

Lloyd harnesses his ability to cover a deal 

of ground with his long, loping stride, with 

a tremendous reach and a powerful throw. 

His hands are big enough to make catches 

a formality. Little escapes him in the air 

or on the ground and he does it all with 

the casual ease of a man born to thrill the 

cricketing crowds all over the world. 

He was ambitious as well as talented and 

when Wes Hall suggested to Lloyd that he 

would benefit from a spell in league cricket 

in Lancashire it was an easy task to find 

him a club. 


Haslingden signed him in readiness for 

the 1967 season and Lloyd modestly says: 

“I came to England because I thought it 

would improve my batting technique.” 

Within weeks of the opening of the season 

he had impressed both with the bat, in the 

field, and as a bowler, although he found 

that league requirements called for a 

switch from spin to medium-pace seamers. 

He made the change effectively as well as 

quickly. Runs and wickets came his way 

readily in the Lancashire League and he 

agreed to stay with Haslingden between 

touring Australia, New Zealand, India and 

Ceylon with West Indies teams. 

Lancashire, out-priced in their bid for 

Sobers, turned their attention to Lloyd 

when the new overseas registration rule 

came into being and because he had 

settled down so well and got to know the 

people of Lancashire at Haslingden, he 

signed for the county and has no regrets. 

“They are a great bunch of fellows and 

Jack Bond is a captain in a million,” says 

a happy and contented cricketer who is 

known as Hubert in the dressing-room and 

accepts praise and criticism with equal 

willingness. 

He still has one or two cricketing ambitions 

to fulfil. He would like, eventually, to captain 

the West Indies and to be a member of 

a Lancashire side that wins the County 

Championship. Neither of these targets are 

beyond his realisation, for at 26 Clive Lloyd 

still has the cricketing world at his feet. 

HE LEARNED THE GAME IN THE 

STREETS OF HIS NATIVE GEORGETOWN 

WITH THE HELP OF HIS ONE BROTHER 

AND FOUR SISTERS WHO WERE ROPED 

IN TO HELP RETRIEVE THE BALLS CLIVE 

DISPATCHED INTO OTHER BACKYARDS 

Averages mean little to him. He reads now 

and again that he needs so many runs 

for a special target or so many catches to 

create a new record but these things never 

worry him. A career record of over 6,000 

first-class runs means nothing to him as yet. 

His selection for all five Rest of the World 

matches against England last summer 

pleased him immensely but caused him 

to reflect that he had to miss several 

Lancashire games to do so. 

It is not of great importance to Lloyd for 

whom or where he plays his cricket. It 

is how he plays that matters most and 

although well aware of his great pulling 

power with the crowds he modestly insists 

that they come to see the team and not 

him alone. When asked what was the 

secret of his great cricketing ability, Lloyd 

said: “If ah can see the ball, ah can hit it.” 

And that ideally sums up a perfect cricketer 

and a likeable fellow –a player who likes 

nothing better than to be classed as one of 

the boys. 



ALEX 

HARTLEY: 

LOOKING 

BACK ON A 

TOPSY-TURVY 

2021 

Alex Hartley has spoken of a puzzling personal 

summer with the ball, but the Thunder captain 

admits she is as determined as ever to come 

back strong in 2022. 


CHRISTMAS 

DRAW 2021 

★ FIRST PRIZE - £1,000 ★ 

★ SECOND PRIZE - SIGNED ENGLAND CRICKET BAT ★ 

★ THIRD PRIZE - JAMES ANDERSON ‘1,000 WICKET’ MONTAGE ★ 

PLUS TWO PLACES AT A ‘LUNCH WITH A LEGEND’ IN 2022 

FOR TEN WINNERS AND THEIR GUESTS. 

TICKETS NOW ON SALE 

Please contact 0161 868 6849 

or email lancashireline@lancashirecricket.co.uk 

Draw to take place on Monday 20 December 2021. 

For winning numbers visit lancashirecricket.co.uk/foundation 

Promoter Mr G Porter, Lancashire Cricket Foundation, Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester M16 0PX T 0161 868 6845 

Lancashire Cricket Development Association trading as Lancashire Cricket Foundation. 

Registered with the Gambling Commission, Operating Licence No. 5180.

T 

he 2017 one-day World Cup 

winner represented three 

teams this summer - 

Lancashire, Thunder and the 

Manchester Originals. 

In 24 competitive appearances across 

all formats, the left-arm spinner took 25 

wickets, including a best of 3-6 in an 

early season T20 victory for the Red 

Rose county against North East Warriors. 

“It’s been a really weird season for me,” 

said the Blackburn-born star. 

“I’ve changed a few things technically 

with my action, and when you do 

that it doesn’t all just come together 

straightaway. 

“I’ve had a frustrating year personally 

because I was successful last year and 

took loads of wickets (11 in six games for 

Thunder). 

“I changed a few things, and it almost felt 

like it made me worse.” 

Hartley claimed back-to-back threewicket 

hauls for the Originals during the 

second half of the Hundred and finished 

the Thunder’s summer with a trio of twowicket 

hauls. 

The latter, a brilliant 2-17 from 10 overs, 

helped secure a season-ending Rachael 

Heyhoe Flint Trophy victory over South 

East Stars at Beckenham earlier this 

month. 

Hartley also took a number of eyecatching 

catches and hit the winning 

runs from number 10 in the two-wicket 

RHFT win over pre-game league 

leaders Central Sparks in mid-June. 

That was one of the standout wins 

of 2021. 

“Yes I’ve hit the winning runs at 

Worcester and have taken some speccie 

catches, but I’m there to bowl,” she said. 

“For example, to bowl by 10 overs for 

57 against the Diamonds at Durham, I’m 

better than that. That’s not me. 

“It’s just going to be a winter for me 

to relax, not focus on anything else 

and just get back to the best of me 

because at the start of the season I 

genuinely felt I was the best bowler I’d 

ever been. 

“I’ve just not had the sort of success I 

was after. 

“I’m my biggest critic. I’m never happy 

with where I’m at and am always looking 

to improve. I suppose that’s what keeps 

me in the game.” 


CELEBRATE 

LIFE’S SIMPLE 

PLEASURES 

Brewed in the U.K.

CELEBRATE 

LIFE’S SIMPLE 

PLEASURES 

Brewed in the U.K.

JACK MORLEY: 

A 

BREAKTHROUGH 

SEASON 

Jack Morley sits down with Spin Magazine to look back 

on summer 2021, a season which saw him grasp his 

opportunities with both hands, as he seeks to become the 

latest famed Red Rose spinner… 

D 

uring the summer, Jack 

Morley described the 

month-long Royal London 

Cup campaign as “the best period 

of my life in terms of cricket”. Well, 

after some excellent 

performances, things are looking 

promising for many more moments 

to savour for the fledgling left-arm 

spinner. 

The 20-year-old from Rochdale, a 

product of Heywood Cricket Club, 

claimed nine wickets in seven 

games across a competition which 

saw Lancashire narrowly miss out 

on the knockout stages. 

“I’d definitely stick with that 

comment,” he said, a few months 

on. “Now I’ve had some time to 

look back at the season, have a 

break from cricket, I would say that 

time has probably got even better. 

That’s just because I’m missing 

cricket a bit and at the time you 

live in the moment and it doesn’t 

really sink in.” 

Morley credited the win over 

Gloucestershire (2-22 from 

10 overs) at Bristol and the 

defeat against Durham at South 

Northumberland as personal 

highlights, claiming two wickets in 

each game. 

“The game at Durham, I went for 

22 or 24 in my first two overs and 

ended up with 2-55 on quite a 

good pitch at a small ground,” he 

said. 

Another highlight was the 

opening day win against Sussex 

at Sedbergh when the Red Rose, 

chasing 271, recovered from 115-7 

to win by two wickets with an over 

to spare on the back of batting 

heroics from Danny Lamb and Tom 

Bailey. 

“It was unbelievable,” he recalled 

of his competitive List A debut. 

“After the Cumbria game a couple 

of days earlier, we actually had a 

team chat where we said, ‘Anything 

can happen in these games. Stay 

in them as long as possible. You 

could be six down and nowhere 

but still win the game’. That chat 

ended up being spot on. 

“To be bowling at the likes of Travis 

Head and Tom Haines as well, he 

had a very good summer, gave 

me that boost of confidence to 

say, ‘You can do this’. What I also 

remember in that game, I was 

batting 11 and was sat in a corner 

on my own, waiting to go in. I 

was shaking. I’ve never been as 

nervous in my life!” 

Morley made his first-class debut in 

the Bob Willis Trophy in 2020 - he 

took five wickets in the win over 

Derbyshire at Liverpool, including a 

superb 4-62 in the second innings. 

He did not play a Championship 

game this summer but claimed 

second-team hauls of 7-59 

(Glamorgan) and 6-54 (Durham) 

with the red ball to show his game 

is progressing nicely. 

“If I look back to when I was 17 or 

18 and first started playing secondteam 

cricket, my dream was taking 

a five-for for the seconds,” he 

continued. “I had a dream to play 

for Lancs in the firsts, but my shortterm 

target was wanting to get a 

second-team five-for. 

“Last year was rough because 

there wasn’t much second-team 

cricket. So to do it this year was 

amazing.” 

The six-for came in the final game 

of the season against Durham 

at Southport on an excellent 

pitch, according to Morley, which 

ended up being like “a spinner’s 

paradise”. That brings us to the 

topic of dealing with the pressure 

of being the go to man when 

pitches are turning - the one 

expected to take wickets. It is 

something he has worked hard on. 

“I’ve done quite a lot of work with 

Carl Crowe, our spin coach, on 


this,” he said. “Being away with 

the England under 19s (he toured 

Bangladesh in early 2019) and with 

Lancs, for that tour to India we had 

just before Covid kicked in early 

last year, there’s a lot of pressure 

on you to take wickets, even in 

practice, and to beat the outside 

edge. 

“That is a big change to when 

you’re in England when you have 

to build pressure and help the 

seamers out. 

“But, on pitches that spin, you’re 

the one who has to take the 

wickets. Basically, my work with 

Carl has been about perfecting and 

trusting my best ball, knowing that 

it’s good enough. I’ve just got to be 

as consistent as possible. If you do 

that, the outcome will hopefully go 

in your favour.” 

Morley says the relationship 

between Crowe, the former 

Leicestershire spinner, and Red 

Rose twirlers Morley, Tom Hartley 

and Matthew Parkinson is very 

healthy and productive. 

“All three of the spinners, myself, 

Tom and Parky, we’re all badgers 

or students of the game,” he 

admitted. “And I think that’s why we 

get on so well with Carl, because 

he’s exactly the same. We’re 

always talking about different 

performances and ways of doing 

things, different bowlers’ actions. 

We’re always trying to learn. Carl is 

brilliant in doing that.” 

Morley was hoping to go abroad 

this winter, but Coronavirus 

restrictions have obviously put a 

spanner in the works. Instead, he 

aims to get fitter and stronger and 

work on his game at Emirates Old 

Trafford ahead of, fingers crossed, 

a pre-season tour. 

He admits to not being a big goal 

setter: “I’m someone who goes 

with the flow a bit more,” he said. 

“I just try to enjoy it as much as 

possible. That’s what works best 

for me. 

“Don’t get me wrong, I do have 

goals. It’s just that I try not to be as 

specific with them. 

“I’d love to be able to break into 

the County Championship team 

next season and play a few games 

to show what I can do with the 

red ball. I also want to try and 

replicate the one-day Cup I had. If 

I can do as well as I did this year 

in that competition, plus playing in 

the Championship, I’ll be over the 

moon with that.” 

Another thing this winter holds for 

the rapidly improving spinner is 

watching plenty of cricket on TV. 

He added: “I’m constantly watching 

videos, especially of left-arm 

spinners, which I guess you would 

expect. But I also like watching 

right-arm spinners. I like watching 

a lot of Nathan Lyon. I enjoy what 

he does. I also like watching Jack 

Leach, I think he’s very good. 

It’s how consistent Lyon is and 

troubles batters with everything 

he’s got. For a finger spinner, he 

spins the ball a lot. It’s his spin and 

control which gets me the most. 

“I’m a spinner who tries to spin it 

as much as possible. In terms of 

my action and flow, I’m at my best 

when I try to spin it as much as 

possible. That creates revolutions 

and dip, which is how batters are 

deceived. For me to get to the next 

level, consistency is key.” 


LANCASHIRE 

LEGENDS: 

FAROKH 

ENGINEER 

Farokh was as much a Craftsman as an Engineer. 

One of Lancashire’s greatest ever wicketkeepers, 

the India legend scored almost 9,000 runs in a 

highly entertaining manner and claimed nearly 650 

dismissals behind the stumps during a nine-season 

Red Rose career from 1968 to 1976. 



C 

apped 51 times by India in Test and 

ODI cricket, Engineer’s time at 

Emirates Old Trafford saw him win 

four Gillette Cup crowns amongst a total of six 

trophy triumphs. He was more recently 

inducted into the club’s Hall of Fame as an 

inaugural member, while he is a vice president 

alongside luminaries such as Atherton, 

Fairbrother, Lloyds Clive and David, Simmons 

and Watkinson. 

Not only did Engineer have a lasting impact 

on Lancashire, but Lancashire had a lasting 

impact on him as the now 83-year-old still lives 

in Altrincham, only 10 minutes from Emirates 

Old Trafford, where he remains a prominent 

and popular face. For example, only in October 

was he part of the Lancashire delegation 

which flew out to the Dubai Expo to help the 

county strengthen its relationship with principle 

sponsor, the airline giants Emirates. 

“I’m a Lancastrian through and through,” says 

the Mumbai-born former gloveman when 

reflecting on his playing days with the county. “I 

initially came on a three-year contract, but we 

had so much success that I kept getting threeyear 

contracts. It was a great marriage between 

us.” 

Engineer, who initially got offered county 

overseas contracts by Hampshire, 

Worcestershire and Somerset, continued: “When 

I initially toured England with India in 1965, it was 

the great John Arlott who set the ball rolling. 

He plied me with a few glasses of Beaujolais 

and said I should be playing county cricket. ‘You 

would be very popular here’. 

“Then Lancashire were the last match of the 

tour. The game was played at Southport instead 

of Emirates Old Trafford. I kept on hitting this 

Lancashire opening bowler over the railway line 

there. 

“Then somebody pointed out at tea-time that 

it was the great Brian Statham. I felt terrible! 

I’d grown up to respect great senior cricketers 

in India, and I apologised to him. ‘How could 

I do that to the great Brian Statham?’ He 

was a tremendous bowler, a great guy, and I 

thoroughly enjoyed keeping wicket to him.” 

Engineer and Statham were travel companions 

for the first year of the former’s stay at Emirates 

Old Trafford before Clive Lloyd became a longstanding 

room-mate. 

“Garry Sobers and I were initially invited to 

play for Lancashire, but Sobers and Lancashire 

couldn’t agree the terms. So Garry went to 

Nottinghamshire,” continued Engineer. 

“Cyril Washbrook, our chairman at the time, then 

asked me who else I would recommend. And 

this gentleman called Clive Hubert Lloyd had 

impressed me immensely. And I didn’t hesitate 

to recommend him. 

“For 10 years, he was my room-mate. We gelled 

with the team beautifully and were not made to 

feel like overseas players. There was no extra 


pressure on us because they knew we gave 

100 percent. Off the field, we tried to help the 

youngsters. It was absolutely fantastic.” 

Farokh, or Rooky to those who know him best, 

is a wonderful man. A larger than life character 

with a heart of gold who still does a lot of charity 

work surrounding the homeless back in India. 

“Well, God has been good to me,” he reasons. 

“I’d always heard about great clubs like 

Lancashire and Yorkshire - sorry to mention 

Yorkshire in the same breath - but I never 

dreamt I would play county cricket. He has given 

me opportunities I never thought I would have 

had.” 

He is also a story teller extraordinaire: “Roses 

games,” he says as his eyes light up. 

“I remember getting 90-odd on the first morning 

of a match at Headingley. I tried to hit a six and 

Richard Hutton, a very tall man, caught the ball. 

Everyone said, ‘Well played’ at lunch when I 

came in. But Cyril Washbrook came in, tapped 

me on the shoulder and said, ‘Well played. But, 

in Roses games, we don’t even hit a four before 

lunch! These are the moments you don’t forget. 

“I was also once asked to captain a World XI 

side at the Sky Dome in Toronto and Geoff 

Boycott was in the team. When we were coming 

back through Toronto Airport to Manchester, 

Geoff had a bat in his hands. And the security 

guard said, ‘You can’t take that on board sir, we 

consider it an offensive weapon’. I said, ‘Officer, 

you haven’t seen him bat!’ Well, he ran after me 

through the Airport with that bat!” 

A qualified pilot by profession - “a little thing 

called cricket got in the way” - he also went on 

to be a Match Referee and oversaw games in 

the first edition of the Indian Premier League in 

2008. 

“I think I would have been one of the highest 

earners,” he laughs when asked how he would 

fair in today’s IPL. “But I don’t have any regrets in 

life. I enjoyed my cricket immensely.” 

And he certainly enjoyed his near decade with 

Lancashire, including Gillette Cup titles in 1970, 

71, 72 and 75 as well as Players County and John 

Player League titles in 1969 and 70. 

“When I joined Lancashire, Brian Statham, Geoff 

Pullar and Ken Higgs were the three England Test 

players,” he said. “By the time myself and Clive 

finished, there was Peter Lever, Ken Shuttleworth, 

Barry Wood, Frank Hayes. 

“We all supported each other. Even when Bumble 

scored 214 against India (Edgbaston, 1974) and I 

was behind the stumps, I still wanted him to do 

well because he was my Lancashire team-mate. 

You wished opposition batsmen to get out, 

but somehow I didn’t wish it on him. When he 

reached a double hundred, I was very happy. 

“It was a fantastic team and a bunch of lads. We 

were like a family who all rooted for each other.” 

Engineer, who scored four Red Rose centuries 

with a best of 141 in a County Championship draw 

against Derbyshire at Buxton in 1971, describes 

the late Jack Bond as “one of the best captains 

ever” and reserves high praise for a host of other 

team-mates. 

“Bondy was a super man manager,” he said. 

“David Hughes, what a moment it was for him 

against Gloucestershire. Harry Pilling was a 

real character. He never played for England, 

but he should have done on merit. Peter Lee, 

Leapy we used to call him. He got 100 wickets 

a year regularly. These were unsung heroes. 

Jack Simmons, larger than life and a wonderful 

cricketer.” 

Engineer also has some sage advice for 

wicketkeepers of today, whether that be a 

George Lavelle or those even younger wanting 

to make their way in the professional game. 

He added: “I think wicketkeepers and 

goalkeepers in football are born. You can’t make 

them. You have to have that sense of anticipation. 

You also have to be a character. You are the focal 

point of the team - they look up to you. You are 

the centre of attraction. You are almost like the 

leader of the orchestra.” 


Gambling Harms – An Education 

Programme For Young People 

Lancashire Cricket Foundation, in partnership with Gambling with Lives, has 

secured funding from the Greater Manchester gambling harm reduction programme 

to deliver an innovative and experience-led education and awareness programme 

for young people aged 14-16 in Trafford, Manchester and Salford. 

Working with a total of 300 young people, a series 

of inspirational workshops will equip young people 

with the knowledge that they need to understand the 

inherent risk of gambling products and to critically 

respond to gambling marketing. 

Young people will be encouraged to consider how 

their attitudes, behaviours and interaction with others 

is shaped by personal experience and learn how 

engaging in new experiences can lead to a change in 

these attitudes and behaviours. Sessions will be split 

into two phases: 

1. Presentation from a person with lived 

experience of gambling harms – positioned 

to encourage young people think about 

the impact gambling can have and the 

associated risks. 

2. Education programme – to enable 

meaningful and interactive discussions. 

Positioned to encourage young people 

think about where gambling fits into society, 

different gambling products and the 

influence of gambling marketing. 

The positioning of the workshop message is done in 

a way which leads to self-realisation and a trigger for 

change, with an emphasis on taking responsibility for 

their own decisions in life. 

We will use Emirates Old Trafford to provide a neutral 

venue that engages pupils in a non-threatening 

environment, delivered away from schools. We will use 

the power of the Lancashire Cricket brand to connect 

with individuals that may be hard to engage and 

inspire in traditional institutional settings. 

The project will be a key addition the Lancashire 

Cricket Foundation’s secondary school offer, helping 

achieve one of our key strategic priorities of working 

in 1,000 secondary schools over the next ten years. 


CEO Sleepout 

Emirates Old Trafford hosted the CEO Sleepout event for the fifth year in a row. 

The event which bases their Manchester sleepout at the home of Lancashire Cricket, which we as a 

Foundation and a Club are delighted to host, has now raised over £300,000 over five years. 

Over 50 people braved the cold sleeping under the Point to raise money for such a worthy cause. 

The fundraising so far for the 2021 event has passed £41,000 and is still rising. Congratulations to 

everyone who took part in this event. 

Development 

Centres 

New venues and dates added for the 

Lancashire Cricket Development Centres. 

Learn to play The Lancashire Way with 

our qualified coaches at the Lancashire 

Cricket Development Centres which are 

strategically located across the county: Visit 

lancashirecricket.co.uk/foundation to view the 

latest dates and times. 

Whether an aspiring Test cricketer aiming to 

make it to the very top of the game, or just 

looking to play socially, our Development 

Centres will offer graded sessions, enabling 

players to engage at a level that suits their 

circumstances and ambition. 

Request a booking by emailing: 

developmentcentres@lancashirecricket.co.uk 

with name, date of birth and chosen venue. 

Please note, replies will be dealt with in 

chronological order and may take up to 48 

hours to process. 


National Programmes 

Throughout the summer holidays, some highly successful cricket sessions 

have taken place at different venues across the county. 

Clients and families in Liverpool, who access 

services from Savera UK, took part in weekly 

cricket sessions across a number of days at Sefton 

Park Cricket Club. The project was one of great 

collaboration with female ECB Foundation Coaches 

from Liverpool Cricket Club delivering the sessions 

to the clients. They were well received, with action 

packed games and once word spread the group 

grew. Plans are now in place for further sessions for 

the clients next year and beyond. 

Savera is a leading charity tackling culturallyspecific 

abuse in the UK, including forced marriage 

and female genital mutilation. The charity campaign 

to eliminate ‘honour’-based abuse and harmful 

practices and provide life-saving services to those 

at risk, regardless of age, culture, sexuality or 

gender. 

Meanwhile in Sefton, Brownies and Guides 

have taken part in All Stars Cricket, funded by 

Funds4Runs The sessions were led by the groups 

very own leaders after they understand Activator 

training at a local club. They organised some 

wonderful sessions for the girls with food and 

drinks also provided. The groups finished with 

softball games in Southport where they scored the 

games themselves as their interest in cricket began 

to grow. 

At Preston Cricket Club, an enhanced All Stars 

cricket summer camp took place with over 20 

participants enjoying the sessions. They will be 

keen to further their cricketing experiences with 

extra junior indoor winter sessions planned before 

the season starts again next year. 

As part of the Funds for Runs Community Club 

project, CN Sports Junior Football Club completed 

an All Stars course over the summer holidays at 

the local cricket club South Shore who are keen to 

promote and establish a junior section again. 

Through Chance to Shine funding and in 

conjunction with Preston North End Community 

and Education Trust, sessions took place with the 

local community kids in the Preston area providing 

free school meals for all who attended the day’s 

activities. 


Lancashire Cricket Development 

Centre Bursary Scheme 

The Lancashire Cricket Foundation is delighted to introduce our brand new 

Lancashire Cricket Development Centre Bursary Scheme, reinforcing our strong 

commitment to growing the game of cricket in the county. 

The bursaries have been assembled through 

generous donations to the Lancashire Cricket 

Foundation and are designed to provide financial 

support to young people wishing to access one of our 

Development Centres. 

Each bursary will cover 50% of the cost of a six week 

programme and are available to those young people 

who are eligible for free school meals. 

Not only will these centres help us identify the top 

talent in the county, they are intended to increase 

cricket participation levels among under-represented 

groups in a bid to unearth future talent who may have 

otherwise gone unnoticed. 

For further information or to apply for a bursary, please 

email developmentcentres@lancashirecricket.co.uk. 

You can help inspire the next generation of 

young cricketer by donating to the Bursary 

Scheme via justgiving.com/campaign/ 

RDCbursaryscheme 

Walking Cricket Launch 

The Lancashire Cricket Foundation is delighted to announce the launch of a new 

Walking Cricket programme, made possible through funding from the National 

Lottery Awards for All. 

Walking cricket is a fun, social and welcoming format 

of the game, played at a slightly slower pace and 

is ideal for men and women aged 50 plus. It is the 

perfect way to meet new people whilst staying active. 

• Weekly Walking cricket group for anybody over the 

age of 50 

• Open to both Men & Women of all abilities – No 

experience needed 

• Start date, Wednesday 3rd Nov at GH Carnell 

Leisure Centre, Kingsway Park, Trafford, M41 7FJ 

• Free to attend 

• Time – 11am -12noon with free refreshments 

provided from 12noon 

• For more information, please contact Kay on 

07917750924 or kfloyd@lancashirecricket.co.uk 

The sessions are led by a trained coach and 

start with gentle ball skill exercises which 

build up into a game, followed by a chat with 

complimentary refreshments. 


Members’ 

Representative 

Group Update 

A Message 

From The Chair 

Covid infections in the Greater Manchester area. 

The MRG has worked tirelessly with Lancashire 

Cricket to ensure that members returning to 

Emirates Old Trafford felt safe and secure whilst 

taking our seats in the ground for the first time 

since 2019. 

This season has probably been the busiest 

ever for the MRG, the fact we could not attend 

Emirates Old Trafford has meant more meetings 

held remotely with all the Executive Management 

Team at various hours of the day and sometimes 

night! 

Here’s hoping for a smoother period leading up 

to the start of the 2022 season and one place 

higher up in the County Championship please! 

Finally, good luck to Mark Chilton in his new role 

as Director of Cricket Performance. 

It’s ironic that the last Spin Magazine in 

spring 2021 had a front cover celebrating 

our County Championship ten years ago! 

How close we were in repeating the glory 

a full decade later, in what has been an 

incredible season on all formats of the game 

that we all enjoy. The scenes at Aigburth after 

the final group match, when all our nerves 

were shredded, will remain in our hearts 

and minds for many a year to come and will 

without doubt increase our anticipation for 

the 2022 season to get underway. 

We have been back at Emirates Old Trafford, 

finally watching and enjoying live cricket, but 

still in the shadow of COVID restrictions, with 

our AGM coinciding with a significant hike in 

Colin Gore 

MRG Chair 


Return to Emirates Old 

Trafford / Surgery 

For the first two days of the Yorkshire Championship 

match, the MRG held a surgery that over 150 

Members visited. It was great to meet so many fellow 

Members and talk cricket whilst listening to a variety 

of topics / issues. The initial plan was to help the 

Club manage the return of spectators to Emirates Old 

Trafford. We were aware that, despite the restrictions 

being lifted, many Members were still very nervous 

at attending an event that had so many people 

present. It was obvious that most felt the Covid safety 

precautions being taken gave them confidence to 

return. The experience was inevitably very different 

to anything we had been through before, in particular 

having to pre book seats felt very strange. All of this 

put the Club under considerable pressure and we 

worked closely with them throughout the season 

to provide Member feedback regarding, principally, 

ticketing, car parking, telephone calls & emails (high 

volume), and accessibility. 

Board representation 

At the last AGM a question regarding the Club’s 

constitution was raised and the MRG sought 

feedback from Members, Club Officers and Directors 

to discuss the proposal for dedicated seats on the 

Board for Members. This culminated in a detailed 

discussion at the formal MRG meeting at the end 

of August that was then taken to the September 

Board meeting. Daniel Gidney sent all Members a 

detailed communication following the Board meeting, 

stating the Club’s formal position not to change the 

constitution to have a specific dedicated Member 

representative on the Board. As Chair of the MRG, 

I would like to reiterate his message that the MRG 

are the conduit for engagement with Members and 

we will continue to work hard to make sure that your 

voice is heard. 

Equality / Diversity / Inclusion & 

Membership Growth Projects 

We continue to support the Club on both these 

significant projects and have attended the initial 

working group meetings. In a year when racism in 

the game has been highlighted like never before, the 

MRG welcomes the opportunity to work with the Club 

through the EDI project ensuring all Members views 

are heard irrespective of creed or colour. External 

Companies have been appointed to bring their 

specialised knowledge. 

Covid Memorial 

The Club has sourced various suppliers of memorial 

stones and will consult with the MRG before making 

their final choice. This is an initiative that means a 

lot to us. Most Members will have been touched 

by the loss of a family member or friend and 

having a place in the ground to remember them is 

very special. 

Current MRG team & new post 

The term for three of the current MRG was due to 

expire at the end of this year, however, the Club 

has agreed that with our involvement on some key 

initiatives it was sensible to extend the period for 

a further two years. We are really excited at the 

challenges ahead and I’m already looking forward to 

the 2022 season! 

Since the sad passing of David Benwell, the MRG has 

not had someone to focus on Members with health 

conditions or impairments. As a result, we will be 

looking to bring someone into the Group in time for 

next season and will ask Phil Johnston to contact all 

Members asking for expressions of interest. 

Lancashire Cricket Club and the MRG welcome feedback and comments from Members. You can do this by 

contacting Phil Johnston (Senior Membership Executive), who is available on most match days in the Long 

Room, or any of the five members of the Members’ Representative Group. Communication can be made face to 

face, via email (membership@lancashirecricket.co.uk), letter or the suggestion boxes in the Long Room. 


Equality, Diversity, Inclusion 

Kirti Sharma is an MRG representative 

and is currently working to assist the 

Club with its Equality, Diversity and 

Inclusion strategy, Spin Magazine spoke 

to Kirti about the importance of making 

Lancashire Cricket a place where 

everybody – from all walks of life – feels 

welcome. 

Kirti on the importance of Lancashire 

Cricket being a diverse organisation… 

For Lancashire Cricket in particular, the reason I feel 

so strongly and passionately about it, is because the 

Membership base - and those that generally come 

to the ground - does not represent the community 

where the ground sits. 

Traditionally, cricket has been seen to be a very elitist 

sport and as much as cricket is played across the 

world - in different countries and cultures - I don’t 

think it’s an attractive sport to play now, which is 

sad. I think it was in periods in the 60s and 70s and 

Lancashire did attract a more diverse audience than 

it did now. 

Some of the things that have come out over the last 

few weeks and months in cricket have been shocking 

and things really need to change. I hope that all of the 

actions that are now being talked about aren’t just a 

token gesture. 

Starting from the top… 

There needs to be a huge culture change in most 

organisations. You’ve got to change people’s 

mindsets, ways of thinking and ultimately people’s 

behaviours. 

I think it’s hugely important in terms of Board 

representation - but for me it’s not only electing 

people from a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic 

background to leadership positions but also 

listening to their experiences and amplifying their 

voices. That’s the most important thing, putting their 

viewpoints forward. 

I know John Abrahams has been appointed onto the 

Board at Lancashire, but for me – that’s got to be just 

the start for the Club moving forward. 

Gender diversity matters too… 

You have seen more women at the ground which is 

good, and the growth of the women’s game has been 

great to see. The women’s teams at Lancashire have 

improved and hopefully it can continue to improve in 

the coming years. 

However, what I would say is that we’ve still got to 

remove the behaviours, language, and misogyny 

around the women’s game that you do often hear at 

cricket matches around the country. A lot of the time, 

people change when they realise what their words 

mean. I think there’s a willingness to change. For 

some people that’s been too late, but I am hopeful for 

future generations. 

Kirti’s aim.. 

The goal for me, particularly from a Lancashire 

perspective, is to watch a match at Emirates Old 

Trafford and be able to see the Greater Manchester/ 

Lancashire population represented within the 

ground, as you sit in the stands. It should be a social 

experience for everyone, rather than walking into the 

ground and feeling like an outsider because there is 

no one like you. 

It’s also from an elite performance perspective too, 

because there are a lot of Black and Asian cricketers 

playing representative cricket, but not many come 

through the professional ranks. I don’t know why that 

is exactly, but this is an important task for Lancashire 

to investigate, explore further and understand the 

barrier. 


88 SPIN WINTER 2021 

Qasim Ali is a local boy done good - and there is 

every chance things could be about to get better 

for the highly-rated coach from Nelson.

A 

li spent five years working 

at Emirates Old Trafford, 

including time around the 

first team in the winter months, and 

is now in the hugely prestigious 

role of Head of Cricket 

Development at the ICC’s Global 

Academy in Dubai. 

Ali’s coaching experience is 

vast, including three years as 

an assistant coach in the Abu 

Dhabi T10 League. For the last 

two, he has worked with Deccan 

Gladiators. Mushtaq Ahmed is their 

head coach, Andre Russell their 

star player. 

Whilst that competition was being 

played, Spin magazine caught up 

with a man who has gone from 

East Lancashire to the Middle East 

to discuss a fascinating career 

which includes leading England’s 

Physical Disability team to World 

Cup glory in 2015 and being 

named Coach of the Year at the 

2014 Asian Cricket Awards. 

“When I started off coaching, I 

didn’t really have a clear goal 

as to whether I wanted to be a 

performance coach or whether it 

was in the development side of 

things,” said Ali. 

“I enjoyed both because different 

skills are required to make progress 

with players in both areas. But I 

have become clearer in the last six 

years as to where I want to be - on 

the performance side.” 

One of Ali’s early coaching 

roles was as a head coach 

of the junior section at 

Lancashire League club 

Burnley, where he was also 

batting in the top order 

for the first team. 

His final year at Turf 

Moor was in 2013. A 

year earlier, he had 

joined Lancashire’s 

coaching staff, 

concentrating on 

the recreational and 

development side of 

things until moving to 

his current role in 2017. 

“Any player or coach who 

can represent their county, 

it’s a huge honour,” he reflected. 

“Lancashire had some wonderful 

coaches at the time, six or seven 

Level Four coaches working from 

the first team downwards.” 

During his time with the Red Rose, 

Ali was also appointed head coach 

of the England Physical Disability 

side, masterminding their triumph 

at the inaugural World Cup in 

Bangladesh in 2015. 

“For any coach, silverware is a 

highlight,” he continued. “But it was 

more so about what was connected 

to that journey. That was my first 

international coaching role. I’ve since 

done UAE Under 16s and Under 19s. 

“To coach an England team 

was a huge privilege, and it 

was a blank canvas for me - I 

could decide my staff, players 

and environment - to put 

everything into place. 

“The fact we did it by 

beating Pakistan twice 

along the way, a team 

who had been our 

nemesis for the last four 

years, was right up there 

in my achievements.” 

Lancashire have strong 

links with the ICC Global 

Academy, a regular preseason 

tour destination pre- 

Coronavirus. 

Ali continued: “My move to Dubai 

has been fantastic. I had a five-year 

plan which has been achieved in 

three-and-a-half. We’ve gone from 

having no success, silverware 

or process, no development 

programme or scholarship players 

coming through. But we’ve turned 

that around. 

“I’m now sending nine players to 

the Under 19s World Cup early next 

year with the UAE, and I’ve got 80 

percent of my performance players 

recognised in the regional, inter- 

Emirates system. That’s a huge 

success for us. 

“We’ve also got a couple of 

players who have stepped up to 

the national men’s team. They are 

Adhitya Shetty and Vriitya Aravind. 

Adhitya was the very first inductee 

in my scholarship programme.” 

Ali’s future ambitions lie in the 

franchise world, though he 

admits he would “welcome 

any opportunity” within the 

professional game. 

He said: “I feel I have become 

resourceful in many different 

facets. I’ve got a British passport 

and speak Urdu and Punjabi as 

well as English. I’m ticking a lot of 

boxes, but I haven’t yet been able 

to break into the franchise world.” 

Ali has watched on with interest as 

English Cricket has been engulfed 

in recent racism issues, first 

brought to the fore by Azeem Rafiq 

at Yorkshire. 

Ali was involved in planning and 

implementing the Lancashire’s Got 

Talent initiative in 2014, a county 

wide search for South Asian talent, 

and added: “There’s so much more 

that every cricket board can do. 

“Is there a quick fix? Definitely not. 

Whatever we do, the fruits will be 

seen in four or five years’ time. It 

won’t be seen tomorrow. 

“I would love to be involved within 

a county set-up to help make 

change, be the voice of opinion 

and help shape the future. If, at 

some point, anybody wanted to 

speak to me, I’d be more than 

happy to take that on.” 


PUTTING THE SPARK 

INTO MATCHDAY 

PROGRAMMES... 

PROUD PUBLISHNG 

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CRICKET 

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Lancashire Spin Magazine Winter 2021

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