school where I made 158 and 79 in a high-scoring draw, so I was not short of confidence in my own ability. I was extremely uncomfortable about leaving home, however, and the first week or so was pretty tough. But gradually, after forcing myself to get involved and do the stuff that I had to do, I was able to push the feelings of homesickness into the background.
It helped that we were into playing cricket almost straight away and that I had already turned out for the seconds that summer and scored some decent runs. It was also greatly in my favour that in one of my early matches, against a Surrey side containing Adam Hollioake and Mark Butcher, I had withstood a rather tasty spell from the South African paceman Rudi Bryson. This is what it’s all about, I thought, as I prepared to face Bryson for the first time, with a score to make and a total to reach for victory on the last day. This is what all those hours in the nets, all that batting, all that practice had been for. Bring it on.
Bryson spent the next two hours bowling four or five bumpers an over at my head. I had never seen a ball travel so fast or rather, initially, not seen it.
For what seemed like ages, I just kept ducking it and ducking it, trying desperately to show no outward signs of the truth that I was, in fact, inwardly screaming: ‘JESUS CHRIST, DON’T LET HIM KILL ME. DEAR JESUS CHRIST, JUST DON’T LET HIM KILL ME’.
Somehow, I got through it, managed first to survive then make solid enough contact to score 34 not out to finish off the game. It was the most exhilarating experience of my cricketing life. On the one hand I was asking myself: ‘How the hell could anyone bowl so fast?’ And on the other I was thinking: ‘No matter how fast he bowled, I won.’
The experience did two things for me. It absolutely confirmed that this was the life I wanted to live, to play and bat against men, not boys. And it showed those around me in the dressing-room that, if nothing else, I wasn’t easily intimidated, though some might have ascribed that characteristic to the old adage about no sense, no feeling.
I made my second significant contribution to team morale in my first match as a ‘contracted’ player, against Sussex at Eastbourne. We stayed at a rather tired-looking seaside hotel and I was rooming with Iain Fletcher, one of a number of slightly older young players trying to make the grade at the club. When we went down to breakfast on the morning of the match I couldn’t work out why he was having quite so such trouble containing his mirth, until he announced to the assembled assortment of old stagers and young shavers that he had just witnessed me making my own bed. Mum would have been proud of me. The other lads thought it pretty hilarious that I had no idea hotels employed people to do that kind of thing for you.
That winter I was off abroad again, this time with the Under-18 schools in a very short four-nation tournament in South Africa, at Stellenbosch University near Cape Town.
When I turned up at pre-season training in 1993 I was ready in my own mind to take the next step, hoping that my chance would come soon and confident I would be big enough to take it.
And the kit. Oh Lord, the kit. If ever someone asked me to go on Desert Island Discs, if I managed to get past the title of the programme, as well as the complete works of Eminem to listen to there would be no question of my luxury item. It would be a spanking new kit catalogue stuffed page after beautiful page full of brand new kit. From a very young age my idea of paradise on earth on a rainy day was to pore over the pages of the latest catalogues revealing all the joys of this year’s new kit; bats, pads, gloves, inners, boots, sweaters, shirts, boxes, arm-guards, thigh-pads; I adored them all, especially anything worn by Graeme Hick, whose batting I found inspirational to watch.
I was already obsessed by bats, to the extent that if anyone in the dressing-room wanted a couple of millimetres shaved off the bottom, or a new rubber grip put on the handle, I took it upon myself to do the job. And even if they didn’t want me to, I’d do it anyway. Anything to do with bats and bat care, I was the expert, and that has never changed. Call me Doctor Blade. Even at this age I told Iain Fletcher that when I retired from playing I wanted to be a bat-maker and I still might, at that. Fletcher reckons my behaviour was something between dedicated and obsessive compulsive; which, incidentally would explain a lot of other things like my sausage-only diet and later, when it was time to try and get myself fit for England, the fact that you would have to blindfold, cuff and gag me to get me away from the gym.
For now, when I turned up at Taunton as winter was giving way to spring that year and saw wave after wave of new kit coming in, all this brand new stuff to ponce around in was bliss. The idea that I was going to be given it for free, rather than have to pay, as I had done until this point – quite frankly I couldn’t think of anything more wonderful on God’s green earth.
Then there was the money. Three thousand pounds of real actual money for the summer, just for playing cricket. At 17, with mum and dad still supporting me, no car yet, lodgings supplied and only maybe a bit of food and drink to have to fork out for, how the hell was I going to spend all that loot? I’d been paid for odd jobs around the house before, and we were always doing little earners like the paper round for three quid a week. And suddenly three thousand pounds was coming my way. The figure was quite fantastic.
My accommodation was less so, however. It was only a stone’s throw from the ground at Taunton, as you could tell by the number of broken windows. Four of us young lads shared what was notionally a two-bedroom house, me and a guy called Paul Clifford in a tiny box room and Andy Payne and Jason Kerr in another slightly bigger box room. It was a disgrace. Apart from the fact that I could touch all four walls of my bedroom from the middle of it, the other notable aspect of the house was that it smelled of cat’s urine – all the time. No matter what we tried, air fresheners, keeping the windows open, everything, the place stunk of cat urine 24 hours a day and it was worst first thing in the morning. We reckoned they used to wait until the house was quiet, come in for a few bevvies and a game of cards and then get down to some serious urinating before wandering off for another day on the tiles.
Payne was a menace as well, a complete psycho whose most prized possession was the air rifle with which he spent most of his spare time shooting me. He’d stuff these little white plastic pellets down the barrel, aim and fire. Day or night, watching TV or reading the paper – whack! – suddenly, out of nowhere, I’d take one in the side of the head. To this day I still carry a slight scar on my left cheek as a result of one of his numerous attempts on my life. It was like living with Lee Harvey Oswald.
It was great fun, all of it, and, with regular mercy dashes home to stock up on mum’s cheese flans, it made being away from home better than bearable.
I’d like to say that when the call finally came, on 12 May 1993, informing me I would be playing in the 1st XI against Lancashire the very next day, I was up for it and ready for anything.
I’d like to say it, but actually I was anything but. My feelings on that first morning were jumbled. I was incredibly excited to be sharing a dressing-room with players like Andy Caddick, just about to make his Test debut; our captain Chris Tavare, one of the 1981 Ashes heroes I had copied as a child in front of my living room telly; Mark Lathwell, who, that season, at 22, scored two 20s and a 30 against the rampant touring Australians and was promptly discarded but whose talent sometimes left you speechless; and Mushtaq Ahmed, the Pakistan leg-spinner who was one of the most feared bowlers in the world, making his championship debut.
But one look over at their dressing-room balcony also made me very nervous. No one said it was meant to be easy, but my early season form with the seconds had been pretty poor – I had just made a big fat nought in a 2nd XI match at Edgbaston. The pitch that morning at Taunton was the colour of Robin Hood’s tights and Lancashire’s opening pair were Phil DeFreitas, on his day one of England’s best swing bowlers, and Wasim Akram, the Pakistan Test star who was almost certainly the best fast left-arm swing and seam bowler ever to draw breath. I’m not ashamed to admit it, but I was actually a bit scared of the idea of Wasim’s pace. At the same time, however, as with all really quick bowling throughout my career, that tingle of fear was like an energy charge. Even though I had some success against ‘Was’ later with England, including my first Test hundred in this country in 2001, facing him was always an intoxicating mix of fear and anticipation.
In