NICK FRIEND: Parkinson is endearingly honest and candid enough to admit that the pressure he has faced came as a new challenge, one that took time to get used to and overcome. It comes with the territory of bowling spin for England, he knows
When Matt Parkinson bowled Angelo Perera on the second day of England’s warmup game against a Sri Lanka Board President’s XI ahead of a two-match Test series, little did he – or his teammates – know that it would be the final wicket they would take before returning home.
That was Friday, March 13. A week on, the world as we know it – for the moment – has changed. It was Parkinson’s fifth scalp of the tour, having taken four more in the first practice game, not that many will remember this unprecedented and ultimately truncated trip for the cricket that was played.
Handshakes had been replaced by fist bumps, before selfies and autographs were banned as the spread of coronavirus grew. Twenty-four hours before the postponement of the tour, the ECB had remained hopeful that the series would go ahead, caveating any optimism by pointing to a “highly evolving situation”.
“My girlfriend was meant to be coming out – one day we got told it was fine, the next we got told it wasn’t,” Parkinson tells The Cricketer. “I think that just sums up how fast things changed and I think there was an underlying feeling that something was going to happen.
“It was difficult; it was quite a weird experience. It didn’t really feel right being out there when there was so much going on. Obviously, seeing how the events have unfolded in the last week, I think the right decision was made to come home.”
The situation in Sri Lanka at the time was far less intense than that back on familiar soil. The Asian country had just three confirmed cases of the virus, but Joe Root spoke of “a relief” when the announcement was made to return to the UK.
“That’s the worst thing about it,” Parkinson adds, “being in a country that wasn’t massively affected at the time and didn’t really change while we were out there, while also being away from your family who are in a country where things are changing by the day.
“I think that’s probably the main reason why we came home. We were kept well-informed – the England doctor was absolutely fantastic for the ten days that we were there. To have the knowledge of what was going on made the decision easier, I think.
“The lads were very professional, especially in the first warmup game. And then things just went from zero to a hundred really quickly.
“It was quite difficult to concentrate, but you’re on an England tour. You’ve got to prepare for the idea that you might be playing, but also there’s a thought that we might not be playing at all.”
Matt Parkinson dismissed Tim Seifert for his first international wicket
All in all, a curious end to an intriguing winter for the Lancashire leg-spinner, who bowled a reverse-sweeping Tim Seifert between his legs to register his first international wicket back in November. “It does feel a very long time ago actually,” he laughs, chatting from his flat, where he is readying himself with a new Sky series for the uncertainty of the months ahead.
Since being called up for both red-ball and white-ball squads back in September – news that had come as a significant surprise to him, there have been four appearances across the ODI and T20I formats. He has bowled exactly 100 balls in international cricket and, interestingly, finishes the winter as one of three men included in all six squads picked by England.
Whether he would have played in the Sri Lanka Tests, given Dom Bess’ reemergence in South Africa and Jack Leach’s return to health and fitness, we will never know. He was certainly making his case, even on surfaces that were hardly traditional of the subcontinent.
“They were quite green and didn’t really spin,” he says. “But I think it was just months of practice and working with Jeetan Patel and then to get a chance where spin out there was the main threat.
“I’d like to think that I did okay in the one and a half warmup games that we had and almost showed a few people what I had learnt over the winter.”
Parkinson is endearingly honest and candid enough to admit that the scrutiny he faced came as a new challenge, one that took time to get used to and overcome. It comes with the territory of bowling spin for England, he knows.
“Obviously, I had a positive start in New Zealand and it gradually got worse and worse really,” he reflects. “I try not to read much of it anymore – I found myself reading the good stuff but hardly reading it, but then reading the bad stuff over and over.
“I think with what I do as well, it’s quite a focal point for the English cricket media – the state of spin bowling and the depth that we have, it’s always going to be a talking point until someone cracks down a position.
“I’ve had very minimal exposure to it, but I stopped reading things in South Africa really, around Christmas time. I took Twitter off my phone, took Instagram off and just sort of chilled. I’ve only just redownloaded them now.”
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The height of the struggle came after a tour match in South Africa, when the 23-year-old was taken on by a fearless middle order in a game that saw England without Leach, Stuart Broad and Jofra Archer through illness.
“It was weird,” he recalls. “There were people dropping like flies. You’d rock up to training and there would be like six lads there.
“But it was tough at times. The most frustrating thing was that I didn’t actually bowl that badly. I bowled all right. They had a couple of lads who smacked it on a flat wicket and then I struggled from then on really. I didn’t play any of the games, which was tough to try to keep up in the nets with what the boys were doing in the game.”
Dom Bess, a close friend since the duo were 10-year-olds, arrived as injury cover and was drafted in for England’s win at Cape Town, having spent the first part of his winter under the watchful eye of Rangana Herath on a specialist spin camp.
There is no animosity from one friend to another or thoughts of what might have been. “I didn’t see it as him getting picked because I was doing badly,” Parkinson explains. “He was the logical choice to call up and he took his chance. I was buzzing for him. It just shows – you think you’re a long way away and then within two or three weeks, you’re playing a Test.”
Parkinson and Bess are long-time close friends
He bowled just 10.4 overs in the three-match ODI series that followed, the second of which was curtailed early on by rain. But the challenge posed by conditions, he believes, can only stand him in good stead going forward – “I don’t think I’ll bowl at many better players than Quinton de Kock on a flat one,” he admits.
One constant subject of interrogation was his pace; he is an old-school wrist-spinner in his desire to get the ball above the batsman’s eyeline.
In New Zealand, it worked a treat – he took four for 47 as the hosts looked to chase down an improbable target set by Dawid Malan and Eoin Morgan in a T20I at Napier. He had Colin Munro, Colin de Grandhomme and Daryl Mitchell caught as they looked to clear the ropes. The fearlessness of his display was lauded as ballsy – his average speed that night was 46.21mph; it was Parkinson remaining true to himself and to his success at county level. In a series played out on flat surfaces and small boundaries, nobody was spared but he impressed.
In South Africa, the same apparent strength and strategy were questioned, with batsmen looking to play him off the back foot.
“Nobody was speaking about my pace in New Zealand,” Parkinson points out. “I think it’s something that I’ll work on like anything, it’s something that I’m constantly monitoring. But I won’t sacrifice the skills I’ve got at the moment to gain any pace.
“You read stories about spinners trying to gain pace and losing the core skills that they’ve got. If I can naturally bowl a little bit quicker in the next couple of years, then so be it. If there are a couple of things that I pick up along the way that help that, then brilliant.
“But if I don’t, I’m not going to sacrifice the skills that I’ve got to bowl any quicker. I’m going to try and let it happen naturally or with the odd tweak. I won’t be changing anything that’s got me to where I am right now.”
In his column for the Evening Standard, Rob Key backed up Parkinson, writing: “It is not easy for a wrist-spinner to just bowl faster, to suddenly be hitting 55mph and retaining the same number of revolutions.”
He urged him to look to Mushtaq Ahmed, the former Pakistan and Sussex bowler, who relied on his variations rather than his arm speed. Closer to home, however, is Adil Rashid – “an absolutely awesome bowler”, nine years Parkinson’s senior and closing in on his thousandth professional wicket.
It has been a long road for the Yorkshireman, whose international bow came when he was even younger than Parkinson. His England debut – it is hard to believe – came in the infamous World T20 defeat against the Netherlands at Lord’s, now 11 years ago. He conceded 36 runs from his four overs that night, but played his hundredth ODI in the two-wicket win at Johannesburg.
It is a reminder – not so much to Parkinson as the wider world – that it takes time. Leg-spin remains the game’s hardest art, one that he is working hard to master. He is happy to admit that he remains a work in progress, but then so – until recently – did Rashid. Only Pat Brown has taken more wickets across the last two T20 Blast campaigns than Parkinson, while nobody surpassed his tally in the 2018 Royal London Cup.
England's tour of Sri Lanka was abandoned as the COVID-19 outbreak spread
“That’s something that people forget,” Parkinson says. “I think Dilly is a great example of that; he played a little bit when he was younger and has obviously learnt a lot in the ten years since then.
“He’s turned himself into a fantastic bowler and one that’s won games for England over the past five years. People forget that he had a crack when he was 21 or so.
“It’s something that you think internally, but people will judge you as a cricketer first; they won’t really think about your age – especially when you’ve been playing for a few years as well. They tend to forget that I’m only 23.”
The pair worked together as regularly as time allowed in South Africa. England played eight limited-over games in 17 days, leaving little time for collaboration, though Parkinson reckons he benefited even “from just watching him and the way that he goes about his work – more tactically than anything”.
Patel was another – “a legend”, Parkinson stresses; one of county cricket’s great overseas players, he worked with England through the winter. The New Zealander played 78 games at international level as well, leaving him well placed to act as a sounding board to a relative youngster.
“It was nice to have a spin coach there who you could relate to a bit,” he says. “To have him was fantastic and to spend the past four or five months with him and build a good relationship was awesome.”
The upshot is a comforting self-confidence in Parkinson. He is certain that he is a “cleverer cricketer” now than pre-winter, even if the evidence is, for the time being, subliminal.
“The end goal was always this Sri Lanka tour,” he adds with a wry chuckle. “It’s a shame it all got cancelled.
“You pick up things subconsciously really. If you asked me to pick out a couple of things I learnt, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell you – it would be something that you might see in July or August that has just crept into your game over the past four or five months.”
And after a 2019 campaign that was successful on the field but overshadowed by family tragedy, Parkinson will never lack perspective.
“After everything that has gone on, it was great,” he finishes. “If you’d said to me that I’d play four games for England this winter and be in every single squad, if you’d told me that in September, I think I’d have laughed at you.
“To have come from where I was at the start of last summer, going into this summer now and being an England international, I’d like to think I’ve done okay when I’ve played. To have that confidence to take from this winter is amazing.”
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