Steven Finn is one of England’s most potent fast bowlers. This month he is part of the Middlesex county squad in T20 action at Richmond’s Old Deer Park. Richard Nye meets a cricketer refusing to be stumped by the past
Steven Finn is looking to the future. I know this because, in the space of two short interviews – one telephonic, the other cradled within the venerable embrace of the pavilion at Lord’s – he tells me so several times. And in no uncertain terms.
His CV is intriguing: the youngest ever Middlesex player; picked for England before his 21st birthday as a bowler of real pace; the second fastest Englishman to 50 Test wickets, before a shakier period – bordering on torment during the last Ashes tour – made selection more hit and miss. For Finn, however, all this is firmly past tense.
“Sorry, are we going to go through my entire England career?” he asks in evident exasperation at the reference to his winter of discontent.
The delivery is not hostile exactly, but it is swinging in sharply and I am momentarily pinned in my crease. The last person to upbraid me for dwelling on the past was Hugh Cornwell, once of The Stranglers but, by the time of the interview, determinedly solo. This time, however, the rebuke carries more weight. Still only 26, back in the England squad and bowling at his destructive best, Finn has far more reason than Cornwell to believe that his greatest hits still lie ahead.
And this month, Richmond residents have the chance to judge for themselves, as Steven and his Middlesex colleagues roll into town. For among the many charming anomalies of English cricket is the fact that Richmond CC, based on the ancient Surrey soil of Old Deer Park, plays its fixtures in the Middlesex League. So when county cricket comes to Richmond – as it does again this summer with two matches in the NatWest T20 Blast – it is Middlesex, not Surrey, who are playing at home.
“It’s great to get the game out to places like this,” says Watford-born Steven, who has yet to take the field in a match at Old Deer Park. “It’s a real chance to reach people who wouldn’t necessarily come to Lord’s.”
As such, this brace of matches is building on a long tradition. Time was when outground cricket played a major part in the fixtures of every first-class county. Like beads in the necklace of England, the small, intimate venues dotted the country, from northern gems like Buxton – where 40 years ago snow stopped play in June – to Hastings, Bournemouth and all the other suntraps of the south.
Recent years have seen many of these outposts spin off the county circuit, injuring the biodiversity of the English game. Now the advent of T20 – the bright and breezy, hard-hitting, family-friendly form of cricket that emerged in 2003 – has given some of them a new chance to shine.
Even so, T20 attendances have fallen in recent years, and Finn believes that scheduling is partly to blame.
“It doesn’t help that games are played at odd times throughout the season. If you look at other countries, they all carve out a block of time for their T20 Blast, making it easier for everyone to get into the spirit. Also, from a player’s point of view, constantly switching between T20 and the longer form of the game is hard. Still, it is as it is, and we just have to get on with it.”
In the febrile atmosphere that engulfed English cricket in the wake of its World Cup implosion, the spectre of structural change for the domestic game – a perennial placebo for the failings of the national side – reared its head once more. This time the replacement of the present, county-based T20 Blast with a big city franchise competition, drawing in the cricketing cream, is among the ideas in vogue. Finn is all for it.
“It can only be good for the game,” he insists. “Standards would definitely improve. People have been resisting it for a long time, but now I think that those at the top are really going to do it.”
Such innovation, however, would surely come at a price. The gusts of change that have blown through cricket over the past 20 years – like the advent of central contracts, whereby the best players are employed by England, not their county – have left the domestic game struggling to ward off oblivion. The County Championship, once a thing of gravity and import, seems in danger of total eclipse by the international game. Might not a city T20 be the beginning of the counties’ end?
“No, I don’t agree,” says Steven, steaming in off his longest run. “I don’t think anyone looks at it like that. The county system is there to develop international players for England. That’s the way every county sees it and that’s how it’s always been. Having a competitive structure is key, but the city idea would only be for T20. We’re not talking about merging counties for the Championship.”
But don’t international players too often view county games as just glorified net practice for England?
“I don’t think that’s a great statement. Personally I love playing for Middlesex – it’s been my team since I was a boy. But I want to play for England in everything I can. Cricket is a long game and it’s just not feasible to come back from England and play county cricket the next day.”
The temptation, of course, is to point out that the likes of Fred Trueman did precisely that. But I resist. Instead we turn to Finn’s county debut, against Cambridge University, at the vernal age of 16.
“It was during a gap in my GCSEs,” he recalls. “I didn’t set the world alight, but I did miss three days of revision.”
The grades still came though, and with A levels also in the bank, Steven was all set for Loughborough University. On the eve of term, however, he had a change of heart.
“I phoned them up and said I wanted a year to see how the cricket went. In the event, the cricket went just fine.”
Indeed. Having made his England debut in 2010, Finn took two five-wicket hauls in that summer’s short series against Bangladesh and, the following winter, was the leading wicket-taker after three Tests of England’s triumphant Ashes tour. Then, suddenly, he was dropped.
“As I said at the time, I was costing too many runs. England wanted someone less expensive and I had no problem with that. Anyway, it was a long time ago. I’m focused on the future now.”
Sporadic selection over the next three years culminated in that second, disastrous series in Australia when – despite all England’s agonies – Finn was branded “unpickable” and sent off to work on his game.
“Look, I didn’t have a good time, did I?” he says, bristling. “I bowled badly, carried a lot of drinks and came home. But that’s all behind me. As I say, I’m looking to the future.”
Whether that future includes this summer’s Ashes remains to be seen. Either way, Old Deer Park beckons.
“It’s going to be great – lovely ground, fine players, great atmosphere. You’d be a fool not to come along and take advantage of it.”
For Steven Finn, the past is not just another country: it has simply been expunged from the map.
Check the Middlesex Cricket website for further match info
