Unlikely lad Harris fits the bill perfectly for selectors (13 Sep 1996)

WHILE Derbyshire recoil at the omission of Chris Adams from the England A tour party to Australia, they rejoice at the selection of Andrew Harris, the fresh-fased 23-year-old from Tintwistle in the north-west of the county whose

13-Sep-1996

13 September 1996

Unlikely lad Harris fits the bill perfectly for selectors

By Mark Nicholas

Harris had been doing some of his own recoiling earlier this week when he heard his name read out on the radio. He had been told that he had a chance, but you never truly believe it yourself, not the first time anyway, and the "what me?" look in his eye illustrates an uncomplicated character who expects nothing from life without the elbow grease that goes with it.

Frankly, alongside the Devon Malcolm, Dominic Cork, Phillip DeFreitas triumvirate, the unlikely lad of the Derbyshire championship charge appears a touch on the innocent side to be slapping the ball into his wicketkeeper`s gloves with every bit of the venom associated with the big three.

In a Sunday match against Hampshire last season, Harris made Robin Smith leap about like he was on a sunburnt tin roof. In fairness to Smith, the pitch was about as corrugated as a tin roof but, as is the way of the grassy playing surfaces in the Peak District, it was anything but sunburnt. Nevertheless, Harris was something else, as they say, as the Hampshire dressing room said, a sharp, incisive young bowler with a natural outswinger and a threatening skiddy bouncer who, his victims concluded, must be taken seriously.

Harris is 6ft but doesn`t look it; he is just short of 12st but doesn`t look it; is an aggressive, hustling cricketer who couldn`t look further from it. His strong bowling action comes after an organised run to the wicket. He impresses most at the point of delivery which is close to the stumps and upright enough to ensure an ideal wrist position and a consistent hitting of the seam. Best of all is the use of his left arm in the follow through which drives him powerfully down the pitch and towards the batsman and which allows him to bowl that elusive thing which the professionals refer to as a "heavy" ball.

Dean Jones thinks Harris every bit as impressive as the better young bowlers in Australia but then Jones is a fan of Chris Adams too, so perhaps the selectors have not taken the Australian word as absolutely read. The point is that the game grumbles about its lack of bowling talent but Jones, with his insight into both camps, does not agree that the cupboard is as empty as the doom and gloomists insist.

Andrew Harris was born in Ashton-under-Lyne, marginally over the Derbyshire border and into Cheshire. Apparently his mother had to produce him somewhere and with Tintwistle being short of maternity wards she went north. Harris doesn`t think much of this and remains fiercely loyal to his roots.

He is the first of Derbyshire`s young cricketers to come the full journey through the youth pyramid - under 13, 15 and 17s - and is thought by his county to be "a smashing lad" who remembers his Ps and Qs - not much of your natural fast and nasty there - and whose willingness to listen and learn has hurried his development. It may take some years to better the 12 wickets he took against Middlesex at Lord`s at the end of June, though periods of play such as the one last evening, when Nick Knight and Andy Moles reminded him of the dark side of the bowling business with their sparkling stroke- play, are a part, he readily admits, of the greater scheme of things.

The scheme of things yesterday was that rather than panic in the face of a couple of good players making hay, Harris rolled up his sleeves and got stuck in. His lucky wicket, Moles playing on, was just the job for his team and the intelligent control which followed in a long spell of old-fashioned, pitch-hitting, batjarring medium- fast bowling played the straight man`s role to DeFreitas`s heroics at the other end.

His team-mates said during their morning net that their boy was a bright and thinking cricketer and so it was proved. The boy has his feet firmly on the ground and they are likely to stay there with this lot as his pals and with the eye of a tough one like Jones fixed on his future.

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/)