Jack Haynes: "The school made me a better cricketer but hopefully a better person too"

Worcestershire and England U19 batsman Jack Haynes tells ED KRARUP about his time at Malvern College, a period that concluded 22 yards away from Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood

It is still uncertain how much schools cricket we will see this summer, but in no way does that lessen the impact that schools have had on the professional game.

It is on these fields where future first-class players experience the elation of scoring a hundred or taking five wickets for the first time. It is also here where the game teaches the next generation important lessons.

Jack Haynes of Worcestershire and England U19s learnt these lessons while at Malvern College and, in his case, this cricketing education started soon after his arrival.

“It was always my goal to break into the school 1st XI as soon as I could,” Haynes told The Cricketer.

“I joined when I was 13 as a cricket scholar and played a handful of U14 games in my first summer. There was always an expectation on me to score runs because of this scholarship. I would speak to people after games, who maybe didn’t know a huge amount about cricket, and they would be surprised if I hadn’t scored many that day.”

It should be made clear that Haynes does not relay this memory with arrogance. He simply got runs when playing with players his own age – and bucketloads of them.

Malvern College have long been one of the country’s top cricketing schools. They are consistently listed in The Cricketer Schools Guide and in the most recent edition Haynes is earmarked as their best prospect.

They are fortunate to put out nine boys’ teams and three girls’ sides throughout the summer, and one particular advantage this offers is the variety of standard. Players can be shifted up and down the pyramid to test them to the edge of their ability, and it was clear that Haynes was simply too good to stay in the U14s.

It was Sir Matt Busby who famously said: “If you’re good enough, you’re old enough,” and with this in mind, Haynes was added to the 1st XI squad. It was a remarkable achievement for a player still in his first year at the school to be deemed good enough to play with boys five years his senior.

^{While at school, Haynes rose through the Worcestershire academy and made his first-class debut last summer}

“Malvern had an incredible team, there were seven lads on the Worcestershire academy at the time,” he recalls.

The summer before, the side had been led by Tom Kohler-Cadmore, also a cricket scholar and now of Yorkshire. He scored a staggering 1,409 runs in his final summer at school and amassed three scores over 150. These efforts were rewarded with being named as the Young Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year. The bar was set high.

Jack joined his older brother, Josh, in a side that also included current Worcestershire spinner Ben Twohig. Master in charge Mark Hardinges – formerly of Gloucestershire and Essex – threw young Haynes straight in at the deep end, at the top of the order.

Chasing 264 against Felsted School on his debut, Haynes batted with patience and discipline, making 28 off 67 deliveries. Although Malvern couldn’t make it over the line, this was just the start of an extraordinarily successful school career.

A matter of weeks later, Haynes made his first hundred for the 1st XI, aged just 14. The belief in the young batsman had paid off.
Hardinges was part of the Gloucestershire side that dominated one-day cricket in the early 2000s but has since moved into education, teaching economics and politics alongside his cricket commitments.

His livelihood in teaching is centred on weighing up risk against reward, as well as the social impact such decisions may have. Placing a young Haynes against boys much older, stronger and experienced than him could, theoretically, have dented his confidence and stunted his development. But it was immediately clear here was a youngster who was ready to take on a higher level.

With the guidance of Hardinges and head of cricket Noel Brett, Haynes would fast become one of the country’s brightest young talents.

“Mr Hardinges and Mr Brett were brilliant. I have a strong relationship with Mr Brett, I still go down and have a net with him and a general catch-up. Everyone respected Mr Hardinges. He didn’t have to say too much but you knew when you had done well or if there were elements of your game you needed to work on.

“I was so lucky to be able to go to a school like Malvern where the facilities and coaches were there for me to use.”

While piling on the runs at school, Haynes was also rising up the ranks in the Worcestershire Academy, and in the summer of 2018, he was selected to make his List A debut, against West Indies A.

“I was in my first year of sixth form at the time,” he explains. “It was strange because one minute I was in a lesson but the next I was on my way to train for the game the next day. You play the game and are fully enveloped in this professional world but then it is straight back to school.

“I still had the adrenaline from the game while sitting in an economics lesson.”

^{Haynes also represented England at the U19 World Cup in South Africa}

But Haynes didn’t have to forgo that buzz for too long, as that winter he was selected for a three-week training camp in India with England U19s. After leaving school last summer, a first-class debut soon followed for Worcestershire against the touring Australians and a bowling attack that included Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood.

These experiences are a long way from schools cricket, but the grounded batsman is eager to acknowledge Malvern’s role in his development.

“Schools cricket is still great preparation and there is no doubt that Malvern helped me make it to professional cricket,” he stresses. “The standard between school and county cricket may be incomparable but what you do learn at school is the art of scoring runs, big runs. Then coming back the next week and scoring more runs.

“It sounds simple, but you still have to get runs every week for school. You learn not to get carried away with one big score. You can never score too many runs.

“But I also loved playing alongside my best mates. I feel like I owe the school a lot, for putting on the scholarship and for giving me a brilliant five years. The school made me a better cricketer but hopefully a better person too.”

The Cricketer would like to thank Durant Cricket for their ongoing support of our schools cricket coverage. For more on Durant Cricket, including booking a site visit, please click here