NICK FRIEND - EXCLUSIVE: There are few on the county circuit in this era who have truly transcended their own club. Bopara is one, a unifying cricketer, respected by all who follow the game nationwide
Essex rejected Ravi Bopara as an 11-year-old trialist. Even to this day, he doesn’t know why. But then, he didn’t care. Where, after all, would it lead in any case? He was just a child, learning the game at Frenford Youth Club, a local community organisation.
A year later, mistake rectified, Bopara was in. Until Wednesday, that remained the case. An association stretching 22 years, a first-team career that has spanned half of his life. This is the end, for now.
The bond will never disappear, the strength of feeling will never weaken, but Bopara is an Essex player no more. He is a Sussex cricketer now – “a bit of a coup,” Jason Gillespie admitted.
Quite simply, Bopara and Essex couldn’t come to an agreement that satisfied both parties. There is no animosity – an exemplary service of almost two decades has seen to that. What remains, though, is an immense pride tinged with an inevitable sadness.
The club is all he has known. He has been thinking for some time about next year’s away game; he dreads the claustrophobia of the away changing room. Not since his first-team debut in 2002 has he had any need for it. “It is crazy,” he confesses. “To come to Chelmsford and not to be on Essex’s side will be strange.”
In Sussex, however, he sees the perfect opportunity – a club not dissimilar to Essex, a town proud of its team and, in Hove, a ground much like Chelmsford.
Luke Wright and Tymal Mills are already on white-ball contracts at the club, while Gillespie coaches Adelaide Strikers through the winter in the Big Bash. The club’s T20 team is a list steeped in global experience.
For Bopara, who told The Cricketer before Essex struck gold at Vitality Blast Finals Day of his plans to turn his primary focus onto T20 cricket, it is an attractive proposition. He is not retiring from red-ball cricket, but the flexibility in his deal means he will enter franchise competitions far and wide, wherever possible.
More so, however, is the longevity of the agreement. Bopara is an unusual 34-year-old; he views himself at the midpoint of his cricketing lifespan.
Darren Stevens’ exploits at Kent have given him a modern precedent, as have those of his best friend and former teammate, Ryan ten Doeschate – Graham Gooch, too, who remains his idol.
“I remember Bumble saying on the TV that I’ve been around forever,” he smiles. “It made me feel really old. I don’t feel it though. It gives me pleasure to see Stevo doing well at his age. He makes a lot of kids look silly.
“Yes, there is an age limit – you can’t play forever. But it just goes to show that cricketers nowadays are not done in their mid-30s.
“I want to play into my 40s. That’s my target. I’ve always planned to do that – from day one. Goochy did it. And if Goochy did it, that’s what I wanted to do. End of story.
“There’s a hell of a lot of cricket left in me, especially now that I’ve taken a little bit of a backward step from four-day cricket. I’ll have more time to work on my T20 game.”
Ravi Bopara has joined Sussex and will focus primarily on T20 cricket
It is an admirable attitude that ultimately played a part in an impasse; Bopara wanted a longer-term offer to reflect his own plans. Essex, as he appreciates, were reticent to commit.
“It’s been incredibly emotional,” he says. “It was a very tough decision. Initially, it wasn’t what I wanted. I loved playing at Essex, I loved playing with the lads, I loved playing for the supporters and I loved playing for the badge.
“My love for Essex will never die. They will always have a special place in my heart. Eighteen years is no joke. You’re part of the furniture, you’re sort of embedded into the walls a little bit. It’s a great place, a special place.
“But when you see yourself as someone who wants to play for the next seven to ten years, then it’s kind of hard to accept when you get told that you’re at a point in your career where one-year contracts are best.
“That’s a really hard thing to take because you then start to doubt. There’s a huge doubt created in your head – that’s why the move had to happen, I suppose.
“We just couldn’t come to an agreement in the end. I love Essex. Absolutely love the club, there’s brilliant people on and off the field from top to bottom.
“I really wanted a slightly longer-term deal. It’s something I’ve been asking for, craving for the last two or three years but unfortunately there were only one-year offers on the table.
“It was the same this year, it was just a little bit too short-term. I wanted to commit long-term, I wanted to make sure I stayed at Essex for the foreseeable future. I want to play a lot of cricket still.
“But Sussex is a brilliant club and I’m about to find out how great they are. They’re a brilliant team and it’s exciting for me. They’ve offered me an opportunity that wasn’t being offered anywhere else. I’m very thankful for that and it means a lot to me.”
We talk for an hour, fittingly, in the reception area at Frenford. Bopara is immensely proud of the youth organisation, he knows the role it has played in his own existence. He nods, winks and chats with several who come in and out of the building.
The feeling, no doubt, is mutual; there is an immense pride at what their alumnus has achieved. He is an example of what is possible. He won't have a bad word said against Essex, the club of his dreams, where he became – and leaves – a legend.
He has just completed a training session on his own in the sports hall, running in from beyond the door, before bowling at a set of unguarded stumps.
There is one suggestion that Bopara wishes to immediately quash; amid thousands of well-wishers, a small minority have accused him of leaving for financial gain.
“It was never about money,” he insists. “I’ve seen a few people say it must be a big-money move and stuff like that. I can tell you right now, you are so wrong if you think it’s a big-money move, so wrong.
“It’s so far away from the truth. It’s not about money. It’s never been about money. I just want to play cricket for as long as possible. That’s all that counts. I just want to play forever.”
Recent months have been among the most difficult; he was dropped from Essex’s T20 side at one stage of a summer that began poorly but crescendoed towards a most spectacular ending.
He and Harmer, the T20 captain, disagreed on his role, though he confirms that the pair remain firm friends. The issue was resolved with an honest chat, even if they agreed to disagree.
Ultimately, however, sport is a brutal school and, for a 34-year-old in the final year of his contract, waiting was not an option he could truly afford to take.
Bopara won a second County Championship title in his final game for the club
“There was a time when it wasn’t looking great and the future wasn’t looking great,” he says. “You’re left out of the side for non-cricketing reasons, probably not doing the role that would have been my first choice. It was hard to see a way back in.
“That’s when the potential move was talked about and talks had to happen at that stage. There were only a few weeks to go until the end of the season. Waiting was something I couldn’t risk either because I could be out of a job at the end of September.”
By the time Bopara played the role of the hero at Edgbaston on T20 Finals Day, it was done. “The toughest decision I’ve ever made in cricket,” he admits, but a thrilling one as well. “Letting go was really tough. Very, very tough. It plagued my mind for weeks.”
Until now, beyond his ever-growing influence in the franchise world, Bopara had never had to move nor had he considered doing so. The only deals he had touched came from Chelmsford.
“Year after year or whenever my contracts came to an end, I’d just sign the new one on the dotted line,” he reflects. “County cricket is home. That was all I ever knew. I never knew about talking to other counties.
“I have never spoken to another county about a potential move. It was all a bit new to me. I didn’t really know how tough it actually is. I’ve always thought it must be easy – everybody moves around and there are guys who’ve played for six counties. But it really isn’t. It is the toughest thing to do, especially in my case.”
Few knew. Essex had more important matters at hand than any individual. It is a mark of the man that he finished in such a trance of infallibility; he averaged 219 across five win-or-bust T20 clashes, ending with an unbeaten 36 in the final on what he describes as “one of the toughest T20 pitches” he has ever played on.
“The team and the club are bigger than the player. For us, we wanted to concentrate on the double – that’s what I wanted. Just give me the double. We can make history here.”
He arrived at Taunton knowing that the County Championship finale would be his final game for the club, just as he knew, when Simon Harmer struck the winning runs to beat Worcestershire at Edgbaston, that he had won the Blast with Essex at his last attempt.
The final’s iconic moment came seconds after Harmer had pierced the gap on the off-side to give Essex their first ever T20 title. The South African sprinted off, his bat above his head, consumed by the moment.
Bopara walked alone, slowing with every step, taking it all in. A man at one with the world, a mixture of relief and joy.
“It’s the one trophy we don’t have in our cabinet – we’ve got everything else,” he said before Finals Day. This was always the one, the holy grail.
“I knew I had one game left,” he smiles. “It wasn’t one of those things where I planned to go crazy. I wasn’t in that mindset. It was more about taking it in. It was what dreams are made of, so take it in, soak it up and lose yourself in it.
“I had been thinking about that moment for so long. I’d been thinking to myself: ‘When I win the T20, I want to be chasing, I want to be there at the end.’ That’s what dreams are made of – to be there at the end. It was what I’d always wanted.”
He laughs – perhaps in disbelief, at his final days as an Essex player. Two trophies in the space of a week; a perfect sendoff into a new world that has Bopara genuinely excited.
Bopara made 219 runs and was dismissed just once in the five-match sequence that secured Essex the T20 Blast title
“T20 cricket is about winning now,” he explains. “It’s not like Test cricket, where it’s planned. This is the game we’ve got to win.
“Now, I’ve got the opportunity to really work on it. I see it now. Now that everything’s done and out in the open, now I can really focus on where I need to go with my game and what level I need to go to. I will die trying to see how good I can actually be.”
He is yet to play in the Caribbean Premier League, but his career has taken him far and wide. He is part of this year’s Mzansi Super League in South Africa, while T20 cricket has flown him to Australia, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
He is hopeful that his central focus on T20 will see him busier than ever before. “Franchise cricket is tough,” he says. “You’re playing against serious overseas cricketers, with the best domestic players from that country. They are the best of the best. To perform well in those, you have to be doing something well.”
There is a realism to his England prospects; he has not played for his country since the 2015 World Cup. He was a curious fall-guy of that tournament, a man with the talent and mindset to thrive under Eoin Morgan’s juggernaut. Even in his most recent T20I in 2014, he struck 21 off nine balls.
He didn’t expect to be involved in the winter tour to New Zealand despite his Blast heroics, given the sheer competition for places. “No way did I think I deserved to be ahead of any of them,” he states. However, the T20 World Cup represents a tangible target.
“Once you make that decision, you know your game is going to improve,” he stresses. “It’s like someone saying they’re playing no more one-day or T20 cricket and are going to focus on red-ball cricket. You’d expect England to take him quite seriously.
“If that’s all he wants to do, he’s going to improve. I’m hoping it works the same way for white-ball. If you just concentrate on white-ball and T20 skills, of course your game is going to get better. You’re going to go to a different level. Your mentality is going to change.
“When you’re playing red-ball cricket, you worry about picking your bat up straight, not getting hit on the shin, there’s three slips, you need a solid forward defence. You don’t have to worry about that with T20 cricket.
“You just have to think: ‘Right, how can I hit this ball for four or six?’ That’s it. That’s all you’ve got to worry about. If that’s all you’ve got to practice, you’re going to get very good at it. That’s my plan.”
When the announcement came – first through an open letter from Bopara on his Twitter account, followed by statements from both Essex and Sussex, it came as a shock to county cricket.
Speculation had been rife for some weeks and his desire to lean towards T20 cricket was well-documented. But Bopara and Essex were one, a single embodiment of one another.
The message he left on social media was a touch of class – a heartfelt nod to an army of loyal supporters. There are few on the county circuit in this era who have truly transcended their own club. Bopara is one, a unifying cricketer, respected by all who follow the game nationwide.
— Ravi Bopara (@ravibopara) October 16, 2019
“I was so scared of everything,” he admits of the moment he released his departure into the Twittersphere, even if much of what he wrote came naturally.
“Having to press the tweet button – I sat there for ages just sweating. There’s so much more I could have said, but you don’t want to bore people.”
He namechecked three men in his note: Gooch, Ronnie Irani and ten Doeschate. Gooch was his hero, Irani his first captain, ten Doeschate his best mate. They are quite a trio – he has kept some fine company.
“I called Graham Gooch to say what I needed to say and thank him,” he reflects with an emotional smile.
“I wanted to write him a handwritten letter, but it was all a bit tough at that time. There were a lot of talks going on. I just knew I had to ring him and talk to hm. I rang him and said: ‘This is the situation. I’m sure you’re aware of some of it. I just want to take this opportunity to thank you for everything.’ I did the same for Ronnie.”
He ends having made 499 appearances for Essex, scoring 19,620 runs, taking 503 wickets and with six trophies to his name.
“I’m not the type of guy to be really proud of myself,” he laughs. “If I’ve done something good, I’m normally the type to put it to bed straight away. Well done, you’ve done it, enjoy it, have a sausage roll to celebrate.
“It’s always the next step. But I saw some tweets of my records – I surprised myself.
“I have heard a lot of people say that, with my performances and my record, I'm an Essex legend. I'd like to look back on it all in that way. That would be nice.”
As a quite touching hour comes to an end, Bopara has one more anecdote. It involves his 17-year-old self and Irani.
“I was on the balcony and I was probably very insignificant to him,” he recalls.
He asked his then-skipper over for a chat and, belying his years, made Irani a straightforward ultimatum. “If you don’t play me regularly from now on, I’m going to leave,” he remembers telling his captain.
“He must have thought: ‘Who does he think he is? Go on then, crack on’. I said I’d leave the club and that I wanted to play first-team cricket.
“He goes: ‘I’ll give you eight games. First eight games of next season are yours. How’s that for a deal?’
“Done. Perfect. I didn’t know what I was saying. Complete rubbish, but I’ve never been out of the side since then.
“It was probably a good move in the end.”
Seventeen years later, it has been some ride. Now, there’s a new chapter to write.
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