A baby daughter and career-best figures at Lord's: A week in the life of Gloucestershire's David Payne

SAM DALLING: Payne's 11 for 87 against Middlesex was the first 10-wicket haul of his career and helped his county secure victory inside three days, leaving a bonus 24 hours for nappy-changing

Championship team of the week: Overton, Sanderson and Payne... but who joins them in the XI?

Championship Chinwag: Payne's perfect week, Overton's audition and the Manchester weather

David Payne masterclass helps Gloucestershire dodge rain to beat Middlesex

It was quite a week for David Payne.

At 10.15pm on the first Saturday of the month, the Gloucestershire left-arm quick and his wife were in a Bristol maternity ward welcoming their first-born daughter Ferne into the world. 

Fast forward seven days and Payne had returned from a few days away from his young family with career-best match-figures of 11 for 87 and more importantly a win over Middlesex. It was the first 10-wicket haul of his career and helped his county secure victory inside three days, leaving a bonus 24 hours for nappy-changing.

The beer Payne was snapped clutching on his sofa that night, daughter resting on his shoulder, can never before have tasted much better. 

“I joked with my wife on day two, saying I will do everything I can to get back early,” he tells The Cricketer. 

“She’d had a couple of tough nights and I was missing them. I thought there was a chance of finishing early but to take six wickets myself and help set up a three-day win…well, it couldn’t have gone much better.

“I’ve probably had just spells or maybe even a day where I’ve bowled that well but not over the course of a game. I just clicked at the right time. In any other circumstances I would have been staying up in London and celebrating with the team but they fully understood that all I wanted to do was get back to Bristol.”

It was touch and go whether Payne would even play but the allure of Lord’s proved too strong. For while Payne had seen white-ball action there – a YB40 Group game in 2013 and Gloucestershire’s Royal London Cup triumph in 2015 – he’d never appeared at the Home of Cricket in the four-day arena.

“There potentially might have been other games that I might have said: ‘No, look, I need to stay at home with the family.’ But I’d never played a Championship game at Lord’s and that’s definitely the epitome for me.

“It was a bucket list thing that I needed to tick off. So I just wanted to play this one game knowing we had time off afterwards. Thankfully my wife was fine with that and it turned out to be a very special week.”

Not that Payne found being away easy, as is understandable of a new dad.

“I literally had had a few days at home with her and then was back on the road. I had the cricket to distract me during the days but in between, it was tough, even though we facetimed every morning and night.

“I was an emotional wreck when she came out. Seeing it happen and then having your daughter in your arms: I was in total shock. The immense love you feel. I don’t think I could ever have imagined how much love I have for her. Thankfully now I’ve come back and got some time with her.”

Gloucestershire now have four victories from five this season, to go with a stoic stalemate against Hampshire, who were denied by 106 balls of resistance from last-wicket pair Josh Shaw and Dominic Goodman.

And so at the halfway stage, Payne and his teammates proudly top Group Two. Any doubts as to whether they could cut it against Division One sides – remember they were promoted at the end of the 2019 season but pulled up no oaks in last year’s Bob Willis Trophy – have surely been banished.

^{Payne's attention will soon turn to the white ball}

“I don’t think we are necessarily surprised,” Payne says. 

“We go into every game wanting to win and believing we can win if we play to the best of our ability. Some of the wins we’ve come away with – the chase versus Leicestershire for example – it feels like we’ve pulled out of the bag. They drove that game and going into day four we never thought we were in a position to win. So in that sense, it has been surprising. But in terms of us winning games of cricket? No, that doesn’t surprise us. It feels like as a team we’ve grown and developed over the last few years, and now we’re reaping the rewards.”

The club is on an upward trajectory: in 2015 they ended a decade-long trophy drought by lifting the national 50-over competition, in 2019 they concluded 14 seasons in the doldrums by securing promotion from Division Two of the County Championship, and last year they made the T20 Blast Finals Day.

Outsiders might lay much of their success at Richard Dawson’s door. He was appointed at the tender age of 35 six seasons ago and left during the winter to become the ECB’s Elite Performance Pathway Coach. But, as is the case with any healthy relationship, the key was in desire rather than need. One party must be able to exist without the other. Anything else is co-dependency.

“Daws worked really hard for five years in setting these things up for us,” Payne says. “He had a clear map of where he wanted us to be and how he was going to get us there. He ticked every box along the way and has completely deservedly moved on.

“But what he’s done is leave the club at a point where he knew it’s not going to fall apart. It feels like we almost could have had no coach: the boys would be able to manage themselves.”

And it helped that Dawson’s successor, Ian Harvey, came from within.

“He knows everything we’ve done, and that he doesn’t have to do too much,” Payne says.

🔥 Every wicket from David Payne's 1️⃣1️⃣ for 8️⃣7️⃣ at Lord's 👇pic.twitter.com/1jFhPs8ERr

— The Cricketer (@TheCricketerMag) May 9, 2021

“He keeps us in check but doesn’t force anything upon you. He is laid back, sits in the background and tends to wait for you to come to him if you need anything – which I’ve done in the past for example to talk about slower balls in white-ball cricket. I just take little bits of information from him in the background. He keeps us ticking along fantastically.”

Part of the reason Payne feels the team could be self-sufficient is the development of collective responsibility among the ranks. Each week, a mixture of senior and junior players meet to discuss training and performances, and what needs to be done to improve as a unit. Again Dawson was a key driver: “One of the things he led with Chris Dent was to develop a ‘culture club’ with four pillar stones that set out who we are and what we are about. Anyone we bring into the club has to buy into that.

“It is about professionalism, making sure we are givers not sappers, and always working as hard as we can. If someone is not meeting the standards they’ll be pulled aside for a quiet word. We don’t do it in front of everyone to make that person feel really low but it’s a reminder to them that ‘this is what we are about.”

Perhaps most importantly, it extends to the coaching staff too, where a similar assessment system applies and players can feed back about the service they are being given.

“It might be fed through Denty or through Harv,” Payne says. “There is no ‘them and us’ – it is not a headteacher and school children scenario. Everyone wholeheartedly agrees that this is one club and to move forward we’ve all got to be going in the same direction.”

^{Payne continues to harbour hopes of pulling on an England shirt again}

Gloucestershire’s formula for success in two of the past three seasons has come by blending West Country talent with players who have not quite made the grade elsewhere. Middlesex have become something of a feeder club, with Tom Lace, Ryan Higgins and George Scott all making the switch down the M4; Jared Warner and Josh Shaw both came from Yorkshire; Dan Worrall and Kraigg Brathwaite have been astute overseas captures.

Payne definitely counts as a local. While he grew up in Poole, he joined the Gloucestershire academy and signed his first contract at the same time as Dent in 2009. The pair have been tight ever since, appearing for the England Player Development XI together in 2011 and becoming neighbours. Payne, like many across the country, is still baffled by Dent’s regular omission from conversations about England possibles.

“When I joined the academy the other guys were saying: ‘This kid is the one’. I’m not surprised he has had a hell of a career.

“I’ve seen him grow as a cricketer as a person and he has done the same with me. He is the one that I am constantly scratching my head as to why he hasn’t had higher recognition – he has not even been looked at by the Lions despite his stats being ridiculous for the last five years”.

If Dent was never on the rank, the next cab off it is surely James Bracey. The wicketkeeper-batsman has been on the fringes of a Test bow for 12 months, spending countless weeks bubbling both here and in the sub-continent.

After a prolific start to the season – he has 478 runs at 53.11 – Bracey’s patience is set to be rewarded. It’s not just the number but all the manner of his runs: his three biggest scores – 118 (234 balls) and 83 (122 balls) at Somerset and 75 (143 balls) last week at Middlesex - have all come at Test tempo.

An incredibly special week 💜💛🖤

Thank you very much for all the kind messages, it’s really appreciated. So proud of the boys performances.

Back home celebrating in the best possible way #LuckyFerne pic.twitter.com/BDeoeWkqnW

— David Payne (@DavidPayne_14) May 8, 2021

“He had a winter of being around England squads but not getting opportunities. That was probably a long five or six months travelling, netting and not playing much cricket. There might have been a bit of frustration as that must have been difficult, and so I was a little worried about how he’d handle settling into the season.

“But his maturity and talent means he has just been able to step in: he looks like he’s a seasoned pro who has been playing for 10 years. He finds it easy to score runs. It looks like he knows his game inside out already. He is so compact, assured and confident. To me he looks a dead ringer to be in that England squad and hopefully make his debut.”

Payne himself was an England youth international, taking more wickets than Ben Stokes at the 2010 Under-19 World Cup. But despite excelling for his county, where he has topped the club’s T20 wicket-taking charts for four successive seasons (jointly in 2020 with Ryan Higgins) and was named bowler of year in 2019 following a 68-wicket season, he too has never been a Lion.

Even with age though, that England dream will never die. “My goal is, and always will be higher honours. I’m certainly going to strive to play for England. I’ve been realistic: with the red ball, I’m not your Ollie Robinson or Craig Overton, they’ve been unbelievable and deserve everything they’ve got. But I think in white-ball cricket I’ve been a bit unlucky not to have a look in with the Lions. I will just keep working hard and doing everything I can for Gloucestershire and hope that something comes in the future. Is it too late? Who knows?”

Fatherhood though has already seen his thinking shift: “In the last few years, I’ve lost a bit of sleep with the white-ball stuff – not getting selected, I mean. You don’t have any communication. You just see you aren’t selected and have to ponder that on your own. Having Ferne has brought me down to earth and given me some perspective. It’s not the end of the world and I can be happy that I’ve given everything I can. She is the most important thing now.”

Subscribe today and receive The Cricketer’s centenary issue – six issues for £19.21. Click here