A day to remember for Worcestershire's homegrown crop: Jack Haynes and the first of many

NICK FRIEND AT CHELMSFORD: Maiden List A hundreds for Haynes and Brett D'Oliveira gave Worcestershire a philosophy-reaffirming victory over Essex at Chelmsford

Tickets please, tickets please. All aboard the Jack Haynes bandwagon.

For those of a Worcestershire persuasion, who knew of him at Malvern College and have followed his progress ever since to England Under-19 level and beyond, this day was always coming. That it took so long – this was his 28th appearance on the first team staff at the county of his birth – was almost to the point of aberration, but it was worth the wait when it arrived: a maiden professional century that oozed longevity and merited a greater stage.

They are widely respected at New Road – famed, even – for the quality and frequency of their production line, but few in the recent past have come through their ranks with a greater sense of quiet confidence among those in the know.

During his first year of sixth form, Haynes was thrown in for his List A debut as a 17-year-old against the touring West Indians and, weeks after leaving school the following summer, he was lobbed in at the deep end against Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood for his first-class debut as an 18-year-old against the touring Australians.

Two summers later, here he is, better for those experiences – “I still had the adrenaline from the game while sitting in an economics lesson,” he told The Cricketer last year – running the show in front of a healthy Chelmsford crowd, dragging a game between two of the stronger sides in this season’s Royal London Cup away from the grasp of the hosts and into the hands of the away side, who arrived as underdogs but were terrific from start to finish – minus a late collapse that followed the conclusion of a 243-run partnership for the first wicket between Haynes and Brett D’Oliveira.

It was the highest opening stand in Worcestershire’s history as a 50-over outfit, and it would be remiss not to touch on D’Oliveira’s own knock. In his tenth season since first turning out for the county, he went to his maiden List A hundred ahead of Haynes – the third generation in the club’s most famous family to the milestone – having drawn up his intentions early by belting Simon Harmer out of the ground at the River End, the only six in a 116-ball innings that also featured 13 fours.

^{Brett D'Oliveira made his maiden List A hundred for Worcestershire}

Even D'Oliveira, though, was keen to focus on his junior teammate: “It is one of those days which we’ll look back on at the end of our careers and be really chuffed with. It was fantastic to bat with Jack, the manner he went about it was brilliant.

“Jack carries himself like a seasoned pro. He has worked on his game tirelessly.”

Haynes, though, is nine years younger than D’Oliveira and green enough still to be christened with ‘prodigy’ status. It was only right when he finally fell, attempting to launch Harmer in a final push, that Essex rose as one to applaud a terrific exhibition. Seamer Ben Allison, one of several bowlers he lined up for punishment, beelined for Haynes to show his appreciation as he dragged himself off the field for 153, having only offered his first chance two runs earlier.

Because, for the most part, he put on a clinic that has been coming for some time: he first reached three figures for Malvern’s first team as a 14-year-old cricket scholar, by which stage he had already played above his age-group at county youth level alongside his older brother, Josh, who has himself played twice in first-class games for Leeds-Bradford MCCU.

“There was always an expectation on me to score runs because of this scholarship,” he said in that 2020 interview. “I would speak to people after games, who maybe didn’t know a huge amount about cricket, and they would be surprised if I hadn’t scored many that day.”

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In a competition purported by some to be little more than a development opportunity, this was a decent rebuttal: an alumnus of England’s youth pathways in just his fourth professional one-day match, milking Harmer, the country’s best overseas player; watching on was Alastair Cook who began the afternoon in the slip cordon but was quickly shunted elsewhere as Haynes’ assault – if that’s the right word for such a languid melange of stroke-play – became increasingly sustained. Steadily, with D’Oliveira’s encouragement, a promising cameo graduated into something more substantial and then again, once his opening partner had departed, into the kind of match-defining contribution that his short career to this point has perhaps been lacking.

He reached 150 with a picture-book chip over extra cover, guiding Worcestershire to the fourth-highest total in List A history by any county against Essex and, as it later transpired, to Essex’s largest-ever 50-over defeat. Adam Wheater scythed 77 in reply, but the home side were well beaten, any hope of a run-chase destroyed by the visiting seamers and three late wickets for D’Oliveira's leg spin. Worcestershire, on the other hand, are three from three and top of the tree. In any language, in any format, winning by 182 runs constitutes a trouncing.

All this without regular head coach Alex Gidman, who is on Birmingham Phoenix duty, leaving Alan Richardson in temporary charge. Kevin Sharp, head of player and coach development at the club, watched on like a proud father from the press box, where he hopped onto the airwaves for a short stint on radio commentary.

^{Essex were soundly beaten}

Earlier this week, Richardson told The Cricketer of his ambitions for the next month: “We will be going out to be as competitive as possible, we would love to have success in this competition. But what we will do – and it’s in the Worcester DNA – is it will be about developing players as well.”

Left-arm spinner Josh Baker – another academy graduate and Malvern alumnus – looked a fine prospect in an almost entirely homegrown team.

“I want us to come away from the tournament having stretched ourselves as much as possible and having learned something about ourselves,” added Richardson. “I don’t want us after two weeks to have tried to do the same thing. I think we owe it to ourselves to use this window to look at what we can do.”

He was true to his preamble, promoting captain Joe Leach to No.3 in an attempt to exploit the platform laid by the opening pair. The gamble didn’t pay off, but it was an action to back up the words.

The former seamer is a softly spoken coach and a man of humility, but even he might have struggled to retain his composure as Haynes danced along to his own untroubled beat. One six in the final throes of a knock that so belied his years had the easy hallmarks of Joe Root; the bat-path through the ball was the same, so too was the comfort with which it carried over the rope relative to what felt like little more than a push back over the bowler’s head.

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They say the first hundred is the hardest. Haynes made 97 against Derbyshire in the County Championship earlier this summer but fell three runs short. “Gutted not to get the three figures,” he said back in May. “It’s the game, though, and these things happen.”

He can relinquish that memory now, having taken the giant, three-run leap that those who have watched the unfolding of this fledgling career saw as an inevitability.

“To go on and get a big one so today was a monkey off the back and a bit of relief and happiness,” said Haynes, speaking tonight, three months on from that previous disappointment.

There will be many more where this came from. Buy a ticket, get on board. Worcestershire’s talent factory has done it again.