Don't get out: A guide to the first ball of the county season

NICK FRIEND: Last week, all nine brave opening batsmen survived the first delivery of the County Championship season. Luis Reece and Nick Browne explain a unique trepidation, while Olly Hannon-Dalby gives the bowler's perspective

“It can be quite nerve-wracking just because you don’t want to be the first out in the country,” laughs Nick Browne, Essex’s opening batsman.

Last Thursday, he was one of nine men tasked with staving off that particular ignominy. When April comes around and county cricket restarts, a single thought briefly takes over: survive the first ball of the season.

This time, everyone did, each in their own way. Some shouldered arms, others defended stoutly, Middlesex’s Sam Robson punched through mid-off for an assertive boundary.

Eventually, Derbyshire captain Billy Godleman claimed this year’s dubious honour, edging Liam Norwell behind in the second over at Edgbaston to become the first player dismissed in the 2021 campaign and one of two openers nationwide to fall without scoring on day one, alongside Durham’s Michael Jones.

As Godleman walked off, Luis Reece, his partner at the top of the order, watched on all too knowingly. He had successfully seen off the first six balls to take his place at the non-striker’s end, but he has not always been so lucky.

In 2019, Reece was dismissed by Chris Rushworth at 10.57am on April 5, three minutes before the season’s scheduled start time, with Wayne Madsen following two balls later: Derbyshire were 0 for 2 by 11am on the first morning, when play should have begun.

“I don’t know if that counts as the first ball of the season or the last ball of the previous year,” he quips, recounting the details of his nightmare to The Cricketer.

^{Nottinghamshire celebrate the wicket of Michael Jones, one of two openers to fall without scoring on the opening day of the campaign}

There have been similar stories in the past: Michael Brown, then of Surrey, departed at 10.59am on the dawn of the 2011 summer, sent on his way by Chaminda Vaas.

Reece continues: “Obviously, there are nerves around that first ball – you always want to do well. But at least going into the game as the first person to face a ball, you know that you’re going to face one. There’s always a chance if you’re No.2 that you’re going to get run out without facing. I suppose that eases a bit of pressure!

“It’s just about that landmark of getting through that first ball, then trying to get your first run. Those little things just help you to settle down at the crease.”

Browne concurs: “I think it’s your first boundary really or your first half-decent shot that calms you down a bit. The first boundary is a key one.”

Chris Nash, formerly of Sussex and Nottinghamshire, tweeted last Wednesday: “The day before the first championship game was normally spent petrified at the thought we would bat first, the umpires would start a few minutes early and I would have had my middle stump removed at 10:58, before the season had even officially started.”

There is something quite reassuring in hearing professional cricketers speak like that, describing this solitary moment with the same combination of trepidation and panic that befalls the game at amateur level. “It is strange because it is just another ball,” says Browne, who adds another tonic: he and Alastair Cook – a giant of the sport – ritually congratulate one another once both have avoided the humiliation of registering a pair. “You just have to try to get off the mark,” he stresses.

^{Northamptonshire appeal against Kent captain and opener Daniel Bell-Drummond on the first morning}

At Chelmsford, where Essex faced Worcestershire in a high-scoring draw, the first ball of his season was a short, wide delivery from visiting captain Joe Leach, begging to be hit. The dream, some batsmen might say, even if Browne clothed it straight into the ground to miss out on an early chance to break the winter shackles. Crucially, though, he lived to face the second delivery.

“I suppose you’d want a scoring opportunity first up,” he says. “You’d quite like one on your hip – that’s always been my theory about taking the first ball: hopefully they get it wrong and you get one on your hip to fine leg.

“There’s definitely relief in that first run, one hundred per cent.”

Reece adds: “You want one where there is minimal risk of getting out. There’s never a ball that has no risk to it, unfortunately, but I suppose you just want one that has minimal risk and you can just tuck it away. It helps you get settled. You’re just trying to find a way into the innings in as relaxing a way as possible. If you can do that, then obviously it helps to settle you and you can then get underway a bit more easily than people who search for that first run for 18 or 20 balls.”

That was the case for Reece’s teammate, Leus du Plooy, who fell for a 22-ball duck amid an early Derbyshire collapse on the first morning. He came to the crease after 11 deliveries and was bowled by the final ball of the ninth over from Olly Hannon-Dalby, still searching for that elusive single.

“The longer you can keep guys on nought – especially in the first game of the season – you know they’re itching to play a shot, and hopefully they play one at a ball they shouldn’t do,” explains the Warwickshire seamer. “Setting the tone is certainly what we talked about before going out. We didn’t want to ease into it, we wanted to be on it from ball one.

“I think the important thing to remember is that everyone is feeling nervous. I was feeling like that: ‘Oh god, don’t mess this up. Imagine if you bowled a wide here.’ Just little things like that – those thoughts, without a doubt, creep into your head. But they’re also creeping into the head of the batter at the other end, and also the batter at the non-striker’s end and probably the umpire’s head as well.”

^{Olly Hannon-Dalby celebrates the wicket of Leus du Plooy on the first morning of the season}

Does this get discussed in changing rooms, even in jest, or is the anxiety of the first ball of the season simply one of the game’s silently acknowledged subplots?

“It doesn’t really get spoken about, but people definitely think it,” laughs Hannon-Dalby. “You don’t want to be the guy who gets out to the first ball of the season or you don’t want to be the guy who misses the cut strip with the first ball of the season.

“There’s a fine line between nervousness and excitement. As a bowler, you’re stood at the back of your mark and you’re excited that it’s the first ball of the season – it’s a great opportunity. You could be the guy who gets the first wicket of the season with the first ball, so it is a very fine line between a touch of apprehension and being quite excited as well. What if I bowl an absolute beauty? That could also happen.

“Obviously, the absolute ideal is that you bowl the biggest jaffa that anyone has ever seen. But the likelihood of that happening is quite slim. I just didn’t want it to be an easy leave outside off-stump to give them a free sighter. I wanted to be right on the money, challenging the outside edge around off-stump.

“As soon as you’ve got your first few balls out of the way, you’re into your work. You’re up and running, you feel like you’re back where you belong. But there’s no doubt about it, everyone has those feelings: ‘What if I forget what I’m doing?’”

The image of Steve Harmison’s 2006 Ashes nadir looms large as perhaps the most infamous example of an opening delivery going awry. Hannon-Dalby recalls the sense of relief in 2019 when the first ball of the Bob Willis Trophy was pulled by Northamptonshire’s Ben Curran straight at a fielder for no run rather than four. “I’m just thinking: ‘Thank god for that.’ I’d executed what I wanted to and he’s played this ridiculous shot, absolutely belted it. But luckily, it’s gone straight to square leg. You don’t want to go for a boundary or even an easy single. You just want to bowl a dot-ball.”

From there, normality resumes once more and the tension drifts away as quickly as it arrived.

Browne hardly slept the night beforehand; he was awake at 6am and fuelled himself on coffee as he sought to pass the hours ahead of the big kick-off. He was desperate for Essex to bat first – and told captain Tom Westley as much – simply to get it out of the way rather than spending two days in the field first, itching to have his first competitive hit of the summer.

^{The first over of the new season at Lord's...}

“That’s the reason that I’ve always opened, to be honest,” he says. “It’s not to do with my technique or anything like that; I just wanted to know when I was batting. Also, it’s a chance to set the tone for the game and the season.

“If you lose early wickets and you’re 40 for 3, you feel quite responsible as an opener when that happens because you feel like you’ve started it off. So, that’s the way I see my job really – to protect the middle order batters, and they’re good enough to score more quickly later on.”

Hannon-Dalby, on the other hand, forced himself to get up early on the eve of the season to ensure he was sufficiently tired come the evening to sleep through to the following morning.

“I didn’t want to be up and excited until midnight, so I was shattered by 10pm and fast asleep,” he explains. “But I know a few lads didn’t sleep so well. It’s like the night before Christmas, where you’re excited about what might happen. It’s all going through your head. This time last year, we weren’t playing any cricket whatsoever. Although we’d love to have fans in right now, just to be starting a cricket season around a normal time is lovely.”

And ultimately, looking on the bright side is how batsmen, too, have learned to cope with this curious, singular split second of peril.

“It’s just something you have to have a bit of a giggle about – you have to enjoy it,” says Reece, who has been the butt of the joke before. “These sorts of things happen. It’s not a great stat for you, but if it does happen to you, it’s just part of the game. As cruel as the game can be at times, you just have to try to embrace it – there are plenty of good days.”

Last Thursday was one of those. In the end, Reece made 63 and Browne dug in for 26. Hannon-Dalby claimed seven wickets across two innings. Those fears of the worst can be laid to rest – at least until this time next year when, just for an instant, they will go through it all again, eyes wide open and hoping to make it to the second ball of the season.

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