My first real introduction to cricket was at the age of 9 when I played for Burnley under 11’s. I continued to play for Burnley, for the next few years making my 1st XI debut at the age of 15.
My first representative cricket came when I played for Lancashire Under 15’s B team and at the age of 17, I played for Lancashire Under 19’s playing a few 2nd XI games. Aged 18, I was offered a professional contract by Lancashire.
This Is When My Life Changed…
I made my 1st team debut for Lancashire at the end of the 2001 season in a one-day game where I bowled a nervous 4 overs for 33.
The following season I made my first class debut at Old Trafford against Surrey and did well enough to get a good run in the team. I finished the season with 50 first class wickets which earned me a place on the England Academy which was in Adelaide for the winter.
I was a little apprehensive going to Australia as I hadn’t been away for such a long time before but once I was there I really enjoyed the experience. After about three months with the Academy I got called up to the senior One-Day International squad due to injuries. This was another nervy experience but at the time I just thought I was backup and had a slim chance of playing a game.
I was handed my ODI debut in the second game of the series at the MCG in front of about 50,000 people which was a huge thrill for me, especially picking up Adam Gilchrist as my first wicket. I went on to play the rest of the games in that series and got selected for the 2003 World Cup in South Africa.
My best performance in the World Cup came at Cape Town against Pakistan where I took 4-29. What made this extra special was that it was the first game my family had been to watch me for England.
I made my Test debut against Zimbabwe in 2003, taking 11 wickets in a 2-0 series win.
I took a hat-trick against Pakistan at The Oval in the One-Day Series, and helped England to a 4-0 Test series whitewash against West Indies the following summer of 2004.
In 2005 I played most of the summer for Lancashire, taking 60 wickets, and was also in the 12 man squad for the last Ashes test but missed out on the final eleven to Paul Collingwood.
I missed the majority of the 2006 summer due to a stress fracture of the back but I managed to play a few games for Burnley at the end of the season in a season where they won the league.
I was then selected for the Ashes tour of 2006/7 and after having a test series to forget I started well in the One-Day series only to get back problems again and was sent home to get fit for the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies.
The summer of 2007 was a pretty successful one, which enabled me to receive an ECB central contract due to my performances against India in both Tests and ODI’s.
At the beginning of 2008, I was left out of the first test on tour of New Zealand, so decided to get in some practice in Auckland, which saw me picked for the next test where I got 5 wickets.
New Zealand came to England in the summer of 2008 and I claimed my best figures of 7-43. I also got my highest score in that series of 28 but then beat that against South Africa later in the summer with 34. We lost 2-1 to South Africa in the Test series that summer but then thrashed them 4-0 in the ODI series.
We then went to the West Indies in early 2009 and lost 1-0 in the test series but we managed to win the ODI series in which I took 9 wickets.
On arriving back from the West Indies I was named as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year for 2009 which was a huge honour.
Then when the West Indies returned to England in for two tests we won convincingly and I managed to pick up 9-125 in the second test. We then won the ODI series that followed 2-0.
