Callum Parkinson and the long road to belonging

"Everyone loved Jay-Jay Okocha, but my favourite was Youri Djorkaeff," says Callum Parkinson. "That was my first season: I'd have been about seven. We had Fernando Hierro, Ivan Campo. Gudni Bergson was captain at the back. We had a proper side."

If this seems like a strange place to start, then humour a slightly tenuous explanation.

There probably was a time when Leicestershire – with Abdul Razzaq, Claude Henderson and Matthew Hoggard – were like Sam Allardyce's Bolton Wanderers: a hodgepodge of former Galacticos ushered into an unfashionable club and merged with a group of unspectacular pros to form an unlikely success story.

Both teams defied budget limitations: Bolton to qualify twice for the UEFA Cup; Leicestershire to win the T20 Blast three times in a seven-year period. Their falls endured similar trajectories too: Leicestershire went through consecutive seasons without a County Championship win between 2013 and 2014, while Bolton found themselves in English football's fourth tier as recently as last year, at which point Parkinson – after a few winters away playing grade cricket in Australia – got back into watching his boyhood club.

"The following stopped," he explains. "So, if you wanted an away ticket, you got an away ticket."

Bolton are on their way back, midtable in League One. A few days after this interview, Parkinson went to watch a late draw with Gillingham, dragging along Harry Dearden, his former teammate.

Leicestershire's revival has its parallels, built around a youthful spine, with Parkinson – one of the best cricketers on the domestic circuit – at its core. Were the destination of the national team's winter tour somewhat different, he might well have found himself involved with England Lions on the back of 50 County Championship wickets in 2021, comprehensively a career-high. He had taken just 54 in the previous five summers combined.

What has changed is his confidence, the notion that he belongs at this level as a left-arm spinner. Perhaps that sense of affirmation has come later for Parkinson than others – not least his brother, Matt, who is coming up to the second anniversary of his international debut. But it is less than a decade ago that Callum was opening the bowling at the Bunbury Festival as a seamer. With that additional context, it has been quite a rise.

^{Callum Parkinson has become a key component of Leicestershire's bowling attack across all formats (Tony Marshall/Getty Images)}

Some of that new-found belief came from a stint as captain in the absence of regular skipper Colin Ackermann, to whom Parkinson feels indebted: Ackermann might only be 30 but that makes him an old-timer in a youthful dressing room where, alongside Chris Wright – a proper stalwart by any standards, Parkinson is the fulcrum of the attack. He recalls bowling himself into the ground at Bristol as Gloucestershire chased 348 for victory, with Leicestershire a bowler down through injury.

"Weirdly enough, that was the game," he reflects. "I got three wickets caught while they were slogging but standing up in that moment gave me a lot of belief. The captaincy gave me a lot of confidence. It felt like I was respected by my peers."

A fortnight earlier, a draw with Surrey at the Oval was played out on a pitch so flat that just 21 wickets fell in four days. "Oh my god, we'd still be bowling," he says, laughing at the memory. "Ollie Pope would still be batting – he'd have 1,000. I'm all for good pitches, but that week was enough to break a man. I think I took 1 for 170." He's right about those figures.

But Parkinson reflects on those experiences in jest, which says much for how far he has come. "You can point to the two games where I got the big hauls, but they were the days where conditions were really in my favour. I think the games that I took the most from were where we took a pounding as a bowling attack."

It is an interesting point that is matched by the numbers: only Simon Harmer bowled more overs in the County Championship this summer; no spinner took five wickets in an innings more often. All that stemmed from a time after two rounds when Leicestershire were averaging 98.8 runs per wicket; Parkinson had cumulative figures of 4 for 432 after the first month.

There is an assumption that bowling spin in English cricket can be something of a death march. At the end of April, Mason Crane told The Cricketer that in previous years he had played in early-season matches where "you know you're there as a fielder".

It is a difficult conundrum: spinners in English cricket are rarely handed their ideal scenario. More likely, they are unselected, tasked with holding up an end on an unresponsive surface, forced to wait their turn on a green-top or hauled off after an expensive start.

"Certainly, there are a lot of good young spinners about," says Parkinson – he knows from his involvement on a group chat with Crane, his brother and Dom Bess. He played age-group cricket with Matt Critchley, too.

"I think the key moving forward is in how we're handled. With the chat that I'm on, there are obviously frustrations within that group: lads are handled differently, lads don't play, lads go six weeks without bowling a red ball. It's certainly a challenge, probably more mentally, and you then feel the pressure when you do get an opportunity to take it with both hands.

"There's that trend of spinners not bowling, but I bucked that trend and bowled a lot of overs in games where other lads might not have played."

^{Parkinson took 50 County Championship wickets in 2021 (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)}

The lack of an overseas seamer has played a part in that turn of events. He recalls playing in the same side as Mohammad Abbas, who earned the right through his class to bowl overs that Parkinson now owns. Shane Warne's favourite adage is that a seaming ball will also spin, only for the seamers to often clean up before that hypothesis can be tested.

"We're such a young group at Leicester that I do feel lucky," he adds, pointing to the recent departures of Paul Horton, Mark Cosgrove and Neil Dexter, which have played a part in the growth of his own standing. "Matt, Mase and Bessy have got very experienced seam attacks. In the right conditions, that hinders those three. I think if you look at who bowled the most overs this year, we're the lads who played in younger sides. It's a tricky art, so you have to stick together in support of spinners around the country.

"We're all good mates. Bessy is going to the Ashes, the other two are with the Lions. I'd like to think me and Critchley were close. You load up Twitter and people are saying that Matt should go instead of Dom, Mason should go instead of Matt. It's tricky when you know the guys up close and what everyone goes through.

"There's a real cohesion and togetherness. You know the trials and tribulations they've gone through. Everyone knows it's such a hard art – nine times out of 10, only one spinner plays. And any time it spins, you get deducted points. There is a really good group developing."

"I was a thin-layered onion when I started playing first-class cricket: I didn't really know what I was doing"

And Parkinson is still learning: he admits to getting nervous before games and to watching "enviously" at the likes of Sussex's Jack Carson. "He looks like he's bowled off spin for 30 years," he says of the 20-year-old, who has earned rave reviews in his first full season. "It's so natural."

By contrast, Parkinson has reached this point after restarting from square one. Leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed – a Leicestershire teammate – made his List A debut as a 16-year-old earlier this summer. When Parkinson was 15, he was opening the bowling off his long run.

"My technique is still not natural for a spinner," he explains. "It's still got lots of seam bowling mechanics. But it's also a source of pride that I've turned myself from opening the bowling at Bunbury to taking 50 wickets in a season."

When it is put it to him that his summer success might have forged himself a reputation on the circuit, he pauses. "Interesting," he replies. It's not how he has previously considered himself.

Rather, he feels the opposite: "It's not that I'm wary of batting line-ups, but obviously the standard of line-ups around the country is very high."

^{He earned a deal with Northern Superchargers in The Hundred (Stu Forster/Getty Images)}

The biggest lessons from the conference format for a young side like Leicestershire came from coming up against the cream of the Division One crop: as well as Pope's double hundred, they were bowled out by Kyle Abbott and Craig Overton "bowled one of the best spells I've ever seen". The upshot of facing stronger opposition was having to improve faster in order to compete.

"I'm all for it going back to two divisions – it was always going to end up going back that way. But from a Leicestershire point of view, I absolutely loved it. It was just about being aware of how much we need to upskill. I think about the value we got from playing against Division One sides. No disrespect, but we always play Derbyshire and Northants, it feels like we play them eight times per year. It was massive for us to get a sighter of what the top division would be like. That's where we want to end up."

He was not alone in making an impression in 2021: Lewis Hill, Sam Evans and Harry Swindells all enjoyed breakthrough seasons with the bat, while Marcus Harris was an exceptional overseas player.

For Parkinson, the challenge of facing Surrey and Somerset manifested itself in turning poor days into average outings – a quality he sees in Bess, his brother and Jack Leach. Consequentially, he has done less "chasing my tail" than in previous years, when he would search too hard for wickets if he'd gone without the week before.

"I think learning the skill of holding in and knowing when to go up a gear is something you learn when you bowl the overs," he reflects. "If you hold in, you'll get the overs at the back-end and potentially have the opportunity, which young spinners sometimes don't get when a team gets six wickets down."

Jigar Naik, the former Leicestershire off-spinner, is now the county's spin-bowling coach. He has provided a wise eye, while Parkinson is close to Simon Kerrigan, another former Lancashire player, who has worked so admirably to rebuild himself in the first-class game at Northamptonshire. "I couldn't be any happier for him," Parkinson smiles. Kerrigan is more technically driven than Parkinson, which has helped when they have trained together.

By his own admission, he is still working out quite what he wants to be: "I've not got a great understanding of it all, if I'm honest. I think that's a nice place to be, though maybe not. But that's one thing that I'm quite strong on: I don't ever really overthink. I kind of refer to myself as being like an onion, which sounds a bit weird. Bear with me."

He explains: "I was like a thin-layered onion when I started in first-class cricket: I didn't really know what I was doing. I probably was an under-cutter, which held me back – I didn't put enough shape or revs on the ball. It was more just about being accurate because at junior level, that's basically all it is. In club cricket, you bowl at the pegs. But then, I got found out – it was fine in T20, but you have to keep upskilling and adding layers to the onion.

"The first point I focused on was having a stronger action; I didn't like my mechanics. I did a lot of work on my own during lockdown and with Matt. It's frustrating bowling with him because he just rocks up and rags it. But there was a lot of soul-searching; I wasn't happy – I was just trying to figure out how I was going to survive. That was the main aim going into 2020. I knew my white-ball was fine, but that's not going to keep you in the game. I wanted to feel mechanically stronger and like I was putting more on the ball."

^{Some felt Parkinson was unfortunate not to be recognised with higher honours after his breakthrough season (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)}

He briefly toyed with developing a doosra in training – it was one of Naik's tricks during his playing career – but that particular venture was hindered by a tendency to get "quite petulant if a couple hit the side nets".

In that regard, the fast bowler's temperament has remained even as the rest of his skillset has shifted. You only have to watch the Parkinson twins in action to realise the extent of their competitive spirit: as children playing together at home, there were regular fights and bat-throws, but they are desperately close to one another.

"To be fair, I'm nicer than Matt," Callum jokes. "He's a less likeable version of me. I reckon that's what the lads on the circuit would say if we did a poll. On the field, Matt is frustrated like he didn't get it out when he was a child."

Parkinson prides himself on badgering. He describes himself as a regular visitor to "the depths of YouTube", getting lost for hours in old videos of Kerrigan, Monty Panesar and Daniel Vettori. "Early Vettori, but late Vettori as well," he clarifies. "But I'll watch any spin that's going: second team, club cricket highlights. I just love watching spin, especially left-arm spin."

His brother is no different; Matt told The Cricketer earlier this year how, for all the adulation that came his way after ball-of-the-century deliveries to Adam Rossington and Delray Rawlins on raging turners, the spells that gave him the most satisfaction came when he had to work for his wickets – the kind that don't make for such a riveting social media clipping.

"It's a source of pride that I've taken myself from opening the bowling at Bunbury to taking 50 wickets in a season"

In the cases of both twins, they reference games against Kent as prime examples: Matt took seven wickets across 52 overs. "I had to work so hard for them," he said. Callum took nine across both innings, including Sam Billings through the gate. "I'd beaten him a couple of times and then got him with the straight one – I'm looking to rag that," he recalls. But his consistency of line forced the deception. In an art as simple as left-arm spin, the key is in the subtlety.

Parkinson is too modest to suggest he's cracked it, but he is just the fifth English spinner in the last decade to take 50 wickets in a red-ball season. Has he surprised himself?

"I was actually saying to my girlfriend the other day how I was a bit gobsmacked at how it went this year. I do believe in myself, and you want to think that you're going to do well, but I've had some pretty dark times in red-ball cricket. Hopefully, this is just the start; I've got to back it up next year, and if you can put two seasons back-to-back, that's when you start getting talked about for higher honours."

It is the mature answer of a young cricketer who has grown up. "I've felt like I've had to," he admits. Two years ago, his mother, Maria, passed away suddenly when Matt and Callum were 22.

"My girlfriend has been a massive support network for me. The family has rallied round, my dad has been an unbelievable source of help. The club as well – it's not my home club, but it's my club now.

"It has been a tough couple of years, and I'd like to think I'm coming out the other side of it now. With the performances I've put in this summer, I hope I've made my mum proud. It never gets easier, but I'm doing something I love for a living."

And having taken a roundabout route to get there, he's doing it pretty nicely.