Story Sussex by the Sea (CC07)

[Tuppers]

My name is Tim Taylor and I am the opening bat for East Sussex Division Two team St Peters. I am a twenty-one year old, avid football and cricket supporter and follow both my home clubs, Sussex CCC and Brighton and Hove Albion FC. Being a member at Sussex and a season ticket holder at Brighton, my life was centered around sport, playing and watching. My cricketing career started off in the under 11's at a small Brighton based club called St Matthias, which was now a decade ago. I had a lively cricketing childhood, playing for both colts and adults sides and as my interest grew, my confidence as an opening bat grew too. I was settling into playing week in week out for St Peters and was thoroughly enjoying my time there. I was almost certain I would be playing cricket at St Peters until my retirement, this was, of course, until the phone rang; Sunday 1st April 2007.

"Hi, can I speak with Tim Taylor, please"

"Speaking" I replied

"Hi, my name's Mark Robinson, the coach of Sussex CCC"

I gasped, I was in total shock.

"Yes..." I mumbled

"I was wondering if you wanted to come down to the indoor school later on today, y'know for a little trial."

I couldn't believe it! I knew I had started the season well with St Peters but I would never have thought it would have been noticed by the county.

"Yeah, that sounds great" I replied nervously "When do you want me there?"

"around 6 if that's okay with you," Mark said

"Sure, I'll see you there."

"Great, bye"

As I put down the phone I couldn't believe my luck. My two centuries in three games was impressive, but I'd never thought I'd be getting county trials. Being 21 and having a trial with Sussex was quite uncommon. Normally, as a youngster, you would get in the squad and stay there until under 17 level and you would then be released or given a contract. I was so excited, I immediately phoned my mates and parents. They were nearly as shocked as me when they found out the news!

I looked at the clock, it read 17:30. As I started to get ready I realised I'd forgotten whether I was supposed to go in my casual clothes or wear whites. 'Idiot!' I thought to myself. I decided to wear my casual clothes there and change into my whites if required. I slipped into my Audi A4 and drove to the county ground. My stomach was full of nerves and excitement, I couldn't believe there was a possibility of me being part of the Sussex squad this year!

I arrived at the ground and shook hands with Mark Robinson, I soon realised I wasn't the only trialist here today. There were 2 others with Mark and as I shook hands with them both, I realised I had played against one before. His name was Dickon Morris and was a demon spin bowler who played for Ditchling who were in the league above mine. The other, however, I had never seen before. He was quite shy, like me, but seemed quietly confident. He introduced himself as Chris Blake and said he was playing his league cricket in Kent before he got the trial. He too was a bowler, but, as I soon realised, definately NOT a spinner. As Mark had said I was the only batsman, so I should get my pads on, I got ready to face up to these two bowlers. My first ball could not have been worse for me, Chris ran in, full pelt and bowled an absolute beaut with left me groping at thin air as the ball swung past it and, thankfully, past my off stump by a coat of paint.

"Well bowled" I said grudgingly

He replied with an arrogant grunt and a nod, and I concentrated on Dickon as he skipped in. His bowling was well flighted and I went for the first one (I don't know why, must have been through anger of missing the first one) and connected brilliantly. I flew off the middle of the bat and cracked into the back wall of the Indoor School. I carried on batting for about 30 minutes, playing a selection of shots, to both bowlers. I was using my feet against the spinner, and I could see out of the corner of my eye, Mark Robinsons impressed impression. My impressive technique had hopefully made a big enough impression on Mark Robinson, and I fully believe it had until Chris produced another beauty with knocked out my off stump. He told me I had 2 balls left to face and with a certain degree of anger from being bowled last ball, I slog swept the spinner hard and it came off beautifully. It would have been a huge six in league cricket and I was delighted it had worked so perfectly. I decided to come down the wicket last ball and try to loft the ball back over the bowlers head. Unfortunately, Chris had decided to bowl a bouncer, I came down the wicket confidently only to see the ball fly over a foot over my head. The session ended in a laugh, but I was secretly wishing I had done enough to get in the squad.

Mark came over to us and with a couple of words of encouragement, he got down to the serious business.

"Well, out of the three of you, I am only allowed to give two of you senior contracts" he said "I'll make this short and sweet, I've decided to take you two on board." He pointed to me and Chris. "I'm sorry Dickon, but I'm not sure if you would be up to county cricket. But keep in touch, we'll talk over the season and you can have another trial."

He nodded, you could see he was disappointed but he was trying not to show it.

"Good luck" he mumbled as we started to leave

As I exhaustedly slumped back into my beloved Audi A4, I couldn't believe it, I had made the squad!

Here was the squad list for the 2007 season -

 

[LUMB_YORKSHIRE]

looking forward to this

 

[Spoobir]

Why does this story remind me of Home Improvement?

 

[Tuppers]

As I travelled to Hove for my first training session, I suddenly realised I would be meeting the Sussex players! The players I had idolised as a cricket mad youngster. I was still in total shock of my sudden call up. As I drove into the ground, the first person I found was the other sucessful trialist, Chris Blake. We greeted each other with a firm handshake and went to find Mark Robinson. He was waiting in the office and he came out to greet us.

"The other players aren't here yet, come in a make yourselves comfortable" He said.

We were ushered into a ultra-modern changing room, and shown our individual sections. I was given two training kits, a county championship kit and a one day and twenty20 kit each with "Taylor" "23" on the back. I was so proud. Even being in the ESCL Division Two with St Peters, didn't warrant a name and number on the back.

As the first professional walked through the door, my jaw dropped. Mushtaq Ahmed strode in, smiling. He was a hero, not only mine, my friends and every Sussex fan in England, but all the Pakistanis too. Mark introduced us to him, from the moment he started speaking I could tell he was a very gentle, kind person. Mark told us to get changed and we went out to start some fielding practice.

The rest of the squad joined us and I immediately noticed the intensity of the training. Not that everyone was taking it seriously, but the effort everyone put in and difficulty of the fielding sessions were outstanding to me. They would use a bowling machine and point it toward the sky and shoot the balls at 99mph into the air and you'd have to run in a catch it. I misjudged one that went straight up in the air and ended up diving to my right and completely missing it, bringing a few laughs from some of the lads.

After an hours fielding, we went inside to discuss the next match. Robbo put up the provisional squad for the Worcestershire game next week. I wasn't expecting to feature in it ... and I didn't.

It read, in a somewhat scribbled handwriting -

Robbo went straight over to RMJ to explain his decision. He looked a bit disappointed but just nodded silently. After 5 minutes consoling RMJ, he walked over to us to explain what role we would play in the proceedings.

"You two will be with the seconds, and will be for most of this year." Robbo said. "Mind you,consistent good performances in the twos and you could get a call up to the first team squad."

The seconds first game was away at Essex on the 18th of April, just a day before the first's match. I immediately started thinking about the game and how I should prepare for it. Another one of my hero's, Luke Wright, would also be with the seconds for that game and I would be able to get used to playing with some senior players.

 

[Hooper]

Lol, this is a great little County story...Cricket Coach makes it even better...Good Luck

 

[Tuppers]

The club had announced 2 new signings to bolster the rather thin squad. Dutch free agent Eric Szwarczynski and Irishman Trent Johnston had both joined on 3 and 2 year deals respectively. They were both reasonably experienced pros and I hoped I'd be able to talk to them about their past experiences.

The match came sooner than I expected. I had been to the County Ground every day for training and I was thinking I was beginning to impress with my cautious technique. I had become close with a few players during my short time at the club. Andrew Hodd had been my favourite player before I joined the club and we got along quite well. I also got along well with the other youngsters Tom Smith and Ollie Rayner. They were both playing in the seconds with me against Essex today and I was as excited as I've ever been. As we got on the coach, everyone was in a buoyant mood and ready for the game. I was sat next to Tom, or 'Smithy' as everyone called him, and we talked about his past experiences in the seconds and on the outskirts of the firsts.

As we turned into the Essex's second ground, Castle Park, in Colchester, I loooked round at the peaceful, but impressive surroundings. The huge electronic scoreboard stood high above the pavillion and the 10,000 capacity stand looked impressive amongst the tranquil surroundings. The game, itself was rather dull with both teams losing wickets at regular intervals. We won the toss and batted first, captain Luke Wright said I should open, so I nervously padded up and went out to bat with Carl Hopkinson. I made just 11 before a beaut from their opening bowler, Jahid Ahmed, cleaned me up. In actual fact, my score of 11 was the third highest score of our innings. The game ended in loss by 2 wickets for us, with Luke Wright picking up the man of the match award with 74 off 61 balls and 4-27. Our coach journey was seemingly quiet due to the result. As we drove back into the Hove Car Park, we saw the first team start to leave for their game in Worcestershire.

I was soon back in my small appartment. I checked out the cricinfo site to see the upcoming fixtures and statistics. While browsing the site, I took a look at the Sussex squad for this year, and I was on it! Proud as ever, I phoned all my mates so they could see. I didn't have my own profile page, but I was proud nonetheless.

 

[Pak_cricketer]

Nice you got your name on Cricinfo. They would be proud of that.

 

[treva]

Lovely little county story here, made very realistic by starting off in the seconds. Love the detail of it all. On what seems a bad pitch 11 wasn't all that bad. Will be following this story very closely

 

[PhilD123]

Excellent idea to start off in the seconds. It doesn't give it that unrealistic, I'm a village team batsman and I'm batting 3 for my county the week after feel, which is good. Excellent start to the story, and nice touch with the Cricinfo story!

Great start to the story!

 

[Tuppers]

The day of the firsts game arrived, but bad news struck, suddenly and unexpectedly. He had twisted his knee cap while training at Worcestershire's New Road ground. That meant both Mushtaq's were out and Twelfth man, Robin Martin-Jenkins and new signing, Trent Johnston, would play after all. The next 4 days I went to the County Ground for training with the seconds. We regularly heard updates of the game while training and we were desperately hoping for a good start for the team in the title defence.

I went back home after Day 3's play and took a look at the BBC Sport website. It showed Sussex being in a supremely comfortable position after enforcing the follow on after declaring on 588/9 and bowling Worcs out for 369 and then 305. It left Sussex needing 87 to win and were 9 without loss going into day 4. There were 3 Sussex centurions in the mammoth score of 558. Sussex captain, Chris Adams, led the charge with 174 and Chris Nash opened the batting confidently with 135. Trent Johnston had a superb debut, scoring 102 not out and picking up a few wickets. The website also had a section on Chris Nash and his sudden rise to professional cricket form his humble beginnings in Horsham after his superb 135.

The game finished in the first session, with the loss of one wicket. Richard Montgomerie was the only wicket to fallm caught off Doug Bollinger. Chris Nash and Murray Goodwin ended not out in a polished performance from the Sussex lads. They drove into the ground while I was batting in the nets and everyone went to congratulate them on the performance.

Here was the final summary

They went into the pavillion and got changed, while I concentrated on my batting. Saqlain Mushtaq had just returned from his injury and was practicing his bowling at me. I couldn't believe I was facing one of Pakistans greats, when just a couple of weeks ago I was facing just some of the county leagues best. It was a pleasure and I let him know so at the end and after the session he came up to me and said those words that I'd never forget.

"Great net session Tim, you'll be a good little player soon enough"

I was flattered, I couldn't stop thinking about it on the whole journey home and couldn't wait to tell my mates.

 

[Spoobir]

Great story will we get to see you in action with the 2nds? Or are they not simulated?

 

[Tuppers]

Unfortunately, they don't simulate the 2nds matches

I wish they did.

 

[Tuppers]

Unfortunately, they don't simulate the 2nds matches

I wish they did.