Hatchett's remarkable success story
Sussex's left-arm seamer Lewis Hatchett had to overcome an extremely rare physical impairment to realise his dream of becoming a professional cricketer
ESPNcricinfo staff
26-Jul-2016
In this week's Spin column for the Guardian, Ali Martin speaks to Sussex's left-arm seamer Lewis Hatchett, who had to overcome an extremely rare physical impairment to realise his dream of becoming a professional cricketer:
Hatchett, a tall, athletic and engaging 26-year-old with cropped hair and piercing blue-green eyes, was, by his own admission, not built to play cricket, let alone to ply his trade as a seam bowler. It is, after all, the discipline of the sport that punishes the body more than any other, with constant twisting and pounding that makes aches, pains, injury and ibuprofen a way of life for the foolhardy souls who choose to make a career of it.
This is because he was born with Poland Syndrome, a rare condition that appears in around one in 100,000 births, for reasons still unknown, and manifests itself in a number of possible problems down one side of the body. In many cases it results in an underdeveloped arm or hand - the television personality, Jeremy Beadle, was one such example - but Hatchett is missing his right pectoral muscle and the two ribs that would have sat behind it.