SAM MORSHEAD AT THE AGEAS BOWL: Not that long ago, David Willey sat down with his wife Carolynne and talked about walking away from cricket. It’s hard to marry that man with the spirited, darting left-armer who ripped Ireland’s top order apart
Not that long ago, David Willey sat down with his wife Carolynne and talked about walking away from cricket.
At the age of 29, the sense of World Cup rejection still weighing heavily both on his mind and in his heart, his appetite for the game had all but dissipated.
By his own admission, Willey had wandered his way through the back end of 2019. Cricket had not only become an inconvenience, it was starting to become an irrelevance.
As you might expect of a man who had a lifetime’s goal ripped from him after half a decade’s graft, disillusionment set in like dry rot.
His reason for persisting with the sport - revealed in an interview earlier this month - clearly illustrates his mindset of the time.
“If there was something there, on the table, that I was passionate about and really enjoyed doing, I might have walked away. But at that moment when we had those conversations, there wasn't anything so I just carried on.”
He ended up playing cricket - a game he had given his life to for 20 years - because there was nothing better to do.
David Willey in action for England against Ireland
It’s hard to marry that man with the lively, spirited, darting left-armer who ripped Ireland’s top order apart with vim and vigour in the behind-closed-doors confines of the Ageas Bowl this sunny Thursday afternoon.
Within six and a half overs, Ireland were five down and Willey had four of them; a streak so hot it really ought to have been denied entry to the bio-secure bubble.
Since 1998, England had never rattled through half the opposition in a one-day international that quickly. It’s possible they had never managed it in their ODI history, but full data is not available to make the claim.
What was indisputable, however, was the return of Willey’s smile.
His natural angle and ability to arc the ball into the pads of right-handers was what forced him into the England set-up in 2015 but in the two years leading up to the World Cup the shape straightened.
Willey became less effective, his average in the 18 months from January 2018 was some five runs worse than across his first three years in the national side.
Only recently, during lockdown, did he realise why - his release point had dropped by a foot, he wasn’t giving the ball chance to breathe.
Like Tom Banton, his England teammate who felt on the verge of breaking point just prior to cricket’s global hiatus, Willey used the downtime to invest in himself.
Willey impressed on his comeback to the England side
The result? No longer was he reaching his delivery stride “hoping for the best”. The purpose was back. The poise was back. And, as if by magic, the passion has returned, too.
It took him just four balls of his comeback match in England colours to make an impact, hooping a delivery into Paul Stirling, and encouraging a false shot to Eoin Morgan at midwicket.
Andrew Balbirnie hacked at a full ball outside off stump and edged through to Jonny Bairstow; Gareth Delany chopped one up to Banton at backward point; Harry Tector was rapped on the pads and Willey successfully overturned the initial not out.
Although swing was notably absent - Willey found just 0.28 degrees of the stuff in the first 20 overs of the innings, his lowest return in ODIs - there was rhythm in his light-footed trot to the crease, he rose higher in the delivery stride and generated terrific accuracy - challenging batsmen on their stumps and tempting them into rash strokeplay.
Assisted by an Irish top order which displayed all the structural integrity of a blancmange, Willey soon found himself on a hat-trick within half an hour, had four wickets in 21 balls and came back late on to claim his first five-wicket haul in one-day internationals.
Point proven.
Performance noted.
Comeback complete.
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