Josh Bohannon and the value of enjoying the game

NICK FRIEND: Bohannon is in an England Lions squad for the first time, having led the run-scoring stakes at Lancashire through the summer, having spent the winter with a psychologist who taught him to enjoy the game for what it is

Earlier this summer, Josh Bohannon was being touted as the sort of player who might thrive against the short ball on hard Australian pitches.

As it turned out, the 24-year-old forced his way into an England Lions squad for the first time through the old-fashioned route: weight of runs.

No one else at Lancashire even came close to matching his tally in 2021: Bohannon averaged 53.31 across 14 games for 853 runs in the team that finished as County Championship and Bob Willis Trophy runners-up. He was the leading run-getter among the top six teams.

Not long ago, Bohannon might have seen all that as a chore. But faced with the obvious question – of what has helped catapult his name onto the England selectors’ radar in such a short space of time – there is only one answer. He calls it “a change in maturity”, the result of time spent over the winter with a psychologist “to get me in a state of mind where I wasn’t thinking about cricket”.

The result? “Instead of it being a job, it was just a game,” he says. “I had a couple of years where, even though I’d done pretty well, I wasn’t really enjoying playing. This is the first summer where I’ve really enjoyed going to play cricket and going to training, as opposed to going to work. That was a massive change.

“As much as it can be tough to listen to things you don’t want to hear about yourself, I suppose if you want to keep on getting better and play at the top level, then they’re the sorts of conversations you need to have.”

He didn’t spend much time through the off-season working on the technical side of his game. Mark Chilton, Lancashire’s assistant coach at the time and now their director of cricket performance, agreed with Bohannon that it shouldn’t be his primary focus.

^{Josh Bohannon is in Australia after receiving his first England Lions call-up}

Chilton knows Bohannon’s game better than anyone: the pair worked in tandem in the academy even before he signed pro terms in 2016. They have spoken regularly this year about the transformation in Bohannon’s temperament and have agreed to continue their player-coach partnership even now that Chilton has stepped into a more administrative role since the departure of Paul Allott.

As for their decision to focus on Bohannon’s mindset ahead of this campaign, the proof has been in the run-scoring.

“How different the way that I practise and how consistent my practice is now compared to what it used to be, it has to have some connection to your performance,” Bohannon adds. 

“In the past, if I got a duck I’d have started to think if I’d play the next game. Is it because I did this or my technique or whatever? 

“Whereas now, as long as I’ve done everything in practice and my state of mind is fine, then if I get a good ball, I get a good ball. That’s fine. That’s cricket. I’m just glad that I’m in the state of mind where I can try to express myself without worrying about off-field stuff.”

This was his best season as a professional, batting at No.4, having begun as an allrounder at No.7 before moving up to No.3. That changed with the arrival of Luke Wells, whose presence as a third established top-order player allowed Bohannon to find a position that has become his home.

It was Glen Chapple’s decision, and Bohannon wasn’t initially best pleased.

“But thinking back now, it was the best thing ever,” he laughs. “It gives you that break from coming off the field; I admire people who open the batting to be able to come straight off after doing 150 overs in the dirt, put their pads straight on and get out there.

“But this does give you that little bit of breathing space. I certainly think it’s the number I’d like to bat at for a long time; I feel that it suits my game, I can play the way I want to play and what I think is best for the team to score runs, and ultimately win the game.”

^{No one scored more runs than Bohannon among the teams that ended up in the top County Championship division}

He namechecks Carl Crowe. The former Leicestershire bowler works with Lancashire’s spinners and has become a valuable sounding board for Bohannon.

“He was the one person who probably allowed me to open up more than anyone else in the summer,” he explains. “In the winter working with our psychologist, Lee Richardson, it was all done through Mark Chilton. He initiated it – he felt like I was carrying a lot of things around.

“I’m not a morning person but I’m getting better at it. He was very much like: depending on how you get up in the morning would [be a factor in] whether you’d smash your stumps over when you got to training. All of those sorts of things. Credit to him for noticing it, because I always said that I felt fine. Then, I’d nick a wide one and knock my stumps over.

“That was the best thing ever for me, addressing that and doing some work on it to get in the right state of mind. Ultimately, that has allowed me to go out there and just enjoy playing.

“It was always a big thing for me. I still get a bit of white-line fever, but certainly now I’m able to control emotion a lot better.

“He was questioning me: what are you thinking when you’re batting? It’s weird how when you get questioned about stuff, it makes you realise that you’re not actually that focused on the ball coming down at you because you’re focused on so many other things like your batting average or who’s bowling next.”

So, to the next chapter in this story: Australia, where Bohannon has previously spent winters playing in Sydney. 

He has flown down under with no specific expectations, even if the instability of England’s batting means it wouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility for a set of big scores in the intersquad warm-up matches to shift him into the thinking of the senior side when the Lions return home in mid-December.

^{Bohannon grew up playing age-group cricket with Matt Parkinson and Saqib Mahmood, both of whom are alongside him in Australia}

“I wouldn’t trust everything that stats say,” he says, discussing whether this call-up is a direct upshot of his record in 2021. “I don’t think they necessarily tell the player that you are. I think I’ve done pretty well since starting out. I sort of feel like the next stage for me to try to get better is a tour like this.”

Armed with his new way of approaching situations like this, Bohannon won’t think that far ahead.

In the meantime, though, he is looking forward to working with different coaches and spending an extended period among England’s elite. He is fortunate to count James Anderson among his county teammates, but most will be new to him.

“I’m just really looking forward to getting stuck in,” he says. “I just really want to get out there and experience what it’s like to be around the best of the best really.”

One heart-warming aspect is his relationship with Saqib Mahmood and Matt Parkinson, with whom he played county age-group cricket. Having grown up together, all three are now in the same Lions squad.

He adds: “Everyone who I’ve spoken to has just said: ‘Just try your best, that’s all you can do.’ That’s how I’ve looked at my cricket for the last 12 months – I struggled before that. But if I try my best and do everything that I can, then what will be will be. That’s how I’m looking at this tour.

“There will be certain times when there’s some pressure there when you’re trying to impress. There are going to be certain phases over the next six weeks that are going to be challenging. But providing I do everything in my power, it can only make you a better player, being in that environment.”