The new life of Emily Arlott

NICK FRIEND - INTERVIEW: Until earning a regional contract, Arlott had juggled playing cricket with teaching cricket, but this year that strand of her life has been put on hold to throw everything at the pro game, leading to a Test call-up in June

"When I got into the Test squad, I was always referred to as someone who had come from nowhere," says Emily Arlott, whose journey through 2021 might just be the greatest case study yet for the fledgling regional structure now 18 months old.

She doesn't say that to sound ungrateful or even to lament the ignorance of the domestic game in its previous guise. She played for Worcestershire, never in Division One, rarely against the international cricketers who would become her teammates briefly during a whirlwind summer. 

"I did understand it but, to me, I've always been playing cricket." In a way, she had come from "nowhere", if "nowhere" refers to leftfield.

It is an intriguing paradox. "Nowhere" is always somewhere, but such was the lack of investment in and coverage of the county setup – and in women's cricket more widely – the casual fan is learning as the game grows. Indeed, in her first interaction with media as an England squad member, the opening question surrounded Arlott’s famous surname amid speculation that John, the legendary commentator, might be a distant relative. It was part of the getting-to-know-you phase.

Even Heather Knight, speaking in a press conference shortly after her call-up, admitted to having very little knowledge of her new seamer – at least until facing her in the Heyhoe Flint Trophy. A couple of days after that encounter, in a separate interview, she namechecked Arlott as one to watch and the kind of young player who could only benefit from the opportunity to focus full-time on developing her game.

Until then, Arlott had juggled playing cricket with teaching cricket, working as a community coach through the Worcestershire Cricket Board to justify a county career that began as a 15-year-old. But this year, that strand of her life has been put on hold to throw everything at this.

"I just wanted to solely focus on my cricket because it was the first time in my whole life that I could." They're Arlott's words, but she could be speaking for any number of colleagues. "I'm just grateful that we get to do that as a job, and it pays the bills."

^{Arlott represented Birmingham Phoenix in The Hundred (Stu Forster/Getty Images)}

Domestic salaries must improve, but she has also been recompensed for her time in The Hundred with Birmingham Phoenix – where she was signed into the lowest wage bracket – and her England stint, even if it didn't end with a maiden cap to top off her remarkable story.

There have been challenges, for sure: Arlott is obsessed with keeping busy, not used to a job with built-in rest periods. This conversation took place shortly before Christmas one afternoon, by which time she had already driven up from Worcester beyond Stoke for a three-hour training session in the morning and had arrived back home by 1.30pm. Day done. Coming from the nine-to-five lifestyle, that contrast takes some getting used to. "Initially, I found that quite weird."

She recalls the "silly hours" of the past: school sessions during daytime, one-to-ones in the evenings, finding the time to work at her own game whenever she could.

To retain that sense of rush-hour, she has taken up golf, playing four rounds in some weeks – the consequence of England duty, where it was introduced to her as a rare opportunity to break free from the bio-bubble.

"It's a really nice way of not thinking about cricket," she explains. "Otherwise, I'm such a badger that I could play cricket, train cricket, watch cricket, think cricket. You never actually switch off from it, whereas I have to make myself switch off."

All that is part of learning to be a professional cricketer. Arlott wasn't among the initial tranche of contract-holders, who were awarded retainers midway through the truncated summer of 2020. Instead, she had to wait for the second batch following the end of the season – "I was going to try to get myself in the best position possible for it." Once it was signed, her response was to work all winter to the extent that she was "effectively told to go home from the gym because I was almost doing damage by overtraining".

Ironically, she credits the intensity of that regime for everything that has followed, half-joking that she has spent more time with Central Sparks head coach Lloyd Tennant than her family.

^{Arlott is with England A in Australia (Image credit: ECB)}

"The thing is, nothing's ever promised," she says. "Say, I hadn't performed this season. There's no guarantee that you're going to get another contract. So, in my head, once I had the opportunity I didn't want to look back and maybe regret having not worked hard enough at something. If I undertrain, I'm doing myself a disservice."

You sense that the entire women's game – both in England and further afield – can resonate with a comment like this, having waited so long for the introduction of this infrastructure. It is why, as Lydia Greenway told The Cricketer recently, the sport has so much to thank its female players for, sticking around where there was little to grasp onto. 

As Greenway put it, speaking more specifically about the likes of Eve Jones, Arlott's 29-year-old regional captain: "They sacrificed so much financially, training-wise. They probably went through a time when they couldn't see a proper career in England."

Tash Farrant became a symbol of what is possible when she won a recall to the England fold two years after losing her central contract, which she has since regained following Fran Wilson's retirement. Her story has been well told now, but she left the game entirely for a few months, took a school coaching job and worked her way back into the mix via the platform of a domestic retainer.

Arlott, too, is a precedent for this different reality, plucked – in Knight's words from last summer – "out of the woodwork". Others have since benefited – notably Charlie Dean, Emma Lamb and Maia Bouchier – but there is a strong argument that Arlott was the first uncapped winner of this new era, the first player of the central contract generation picked for England on the strength of little other than domestic form.

She classes the experience as "surreal", the kind that she reckons will only begin to register once she sits down for a week off to reminisce. "It's a year I wouldn't have expected," she laughs, before adding "by miles" just in case that initial reflection risked understating her rise.

^{Arlott uses Woodstock cricket equipment}

"Twelve months ago, I was shocked to even get a regional contract. And if that was what my year was going to look like, then so be it. If I was a betting woman, and someone had said I was going to do all that I have done in a year, I would have thought they were making it up, to be honest. It’s amazing. I'm just really proud of the fact that I've achieved all of that on my own, really. The biggest shock was actually getting the call-up – I remember nearly fainting when I got it."

She tells a lovely anecdote about once meeting Katherine Brunt when England's players came to Worcester for a player visit. Arlott was a schoolgirl then and had her photograph taken alongside England's now-veteran seamer. When she showed her the picture as international teammates, Brunt suggesting bringing it along if Arlott were to make her debut.

Ultimately, it didn't come, although she survived an initial squad-culling from 17 down to 15. In the grand scheme of things, not playing didn't matter. She would have liked to, of course, but once she was named in the squad Arlott turned off her phone for the week and set out to soak it all in.

"Maybe it was a protection thing," she reflects, "but I just wanted to enjoy the experience in front of me. The ECB were good – they did loads of releases about me, with the video of my five-fer (against Southern Vipers) and lots of press. But that could have quite easily derailed what I was focusing on. Still to this day, I haven't watched any of the press conferences. I'm not a public speaker and I'm quite naturally a shy person, so for me to do that I was absolutely cacking myself."

Instead, she has left that job to her mother, taking on the role of proud parent: "She loves her social media and keeps all the press releases about me in a folder. I hate looking at it, but she doesn't want it to be forgotten. I remember she sent me a screenshot of the most-searched thing under my name, and it was 'Is Emily Arlott related to John Arlott?'"

The answer? "I still don't know."

Not that it matters now. She is in Australia for the first time and part of an England A squad, a long way from nowhere.

This article was written in association with Woodstock Cricket. For more information about equipment or sponsorship, visit www.woodstockcricket.co.uk or apply here