Scott Borthwick won a Test cap as a legspinner on the 2013-14 Ashes tour but was already in the process of establishing himself as a No. 3 batter, the role he fulfilled in County Championship-winning teams at Durham and Surrey. By the time he returned to his boyhood club as captain in 2021, the bowling was little more than a part-time option.

But there was no doubting Borthwick's commitment to the cause of returning Durham to the top division. When that goal was achieved in 2023, he described it as his "most special" achievement at the club.

Much had changed since his promising legspin had tempted England to hand him caps in all three formats. Borthwick's Test debut against Australia in the final Test at Sydney, as they lurched towards a 5-0 defeat, turned out to be his last international appearance. Thrown into a losing team in the wake of Graeme Swann's retirement, he claimed four wickets in the match - but he was among the many casualties of that tour and a recall remained elusive even as he began to be mentioned in dispatches for his batting.

Borthwick had passed 1000 runs in a season for the first time in 2013, as Durham claimed their third Championship title in six seasons. He achieved the mark in each of the next three summers, too - only James Hildreth scored more than his 1286 Division One runs in 2015 - but his name check by the national coach, Trevor Bayliss, coincided with a collapse in form.

His legspin was by now serviceable at best, although he put some of that down to the Chester-le-Street pitches. Borthwick was proud of his northeast heritage but the club was in financial disarray and after much uncertainty he followed his Durham team-mate Mark Stoneman in joining Surrey at the end of the 2016 season. He struggled initially down south but averaged 40.36 in the 2018 title-winning campaign. After being limited to red-ball cricket for the next two seasons, he negotiated a release from the final year of his Surrey contract in order to return home.

A product of the local league system in Durham, Borthwick was thrown rudely into the limelight aged 19 when, live on TV, he was carted for five successive sixes by Essex's James Foster to lose a Pro40 game at the back end of the 2009 season. But, surrounded by a battery of paceman at Durham, his spin-bowling returns were encouraging enough to earn an ODI debut again Ireland in 2011. He gained further recognition in a T20 against West Indies in August and on tour to India in October 2011.
ESPNcricinfo staff