Luke Fletcher: More than just a cult hero

SAM DALLING: At the completion of the County Championship’s group stages, no one can match Fletcher’s haul of 47 wickets. Nor can anyone with at least 15 wickets compete with a bowling average of 13.06 or his tally of four five-wicket hauls

“There’s no cheat code: you can’t fast-forward bowling. No chance. It’s one of those things that bites you on the backside. You get a bit ahead of yourself and, all of a sudden, you’re brought back down to earth and have to figure it all out again.”

Luke Fletcher is attempting to put a finger on it. Aged 32, he’s enjoying the best summer to date of his 13-season career. At the completion of the County Championship’s group stages, no one can match Fletcher’s haul of 47 wickets. Nor can anyone with at least 15 wickets compete with a bowling average of 13.06 or his tally of four five-wicket hauls.

More pondering. Then he settles on something simple: “It takes a lot of time really. I thought I’d cracked it when I came on the scene and took a few wickets early. But when I look at the senior bowlers who were around when I first played – Andre Adams, Paul Franks, Charlie Shreck – they were all in their thirties and dominating.

“Now I can see why: they’d done the hard yards earlier in their career and were reaping their rewards. They understood how to bowl on different surfaces. The key is working that out as quickly as you can and adapting. I wish I’d have figured all this out a few years ago – I’d have been a lot better off - but it doesn’t work like that does it?! And I’m still now trying to work out how to bowl different balls.”

Cricket can drive overthinkers to the brink of insanity but there is another blindingly obvious reason for Fletcher’s stellar season: game time. Some believed this year’s domestic schedule would be too taxing but not, as it transpires, Fletcher. “At the start you think: ‘Wow we’ve got nine games in ten weeks – that’s physically hard,’” he admits. “But if you’re performing and getting wins, it doesn’t feel as tiring as when you’re getting hammered!

“I honestly think the big things is I found some good rhythm early on. I’ve looked after myself and my recovery has been good. That kept me on the park: you can’t take wickets unless you’re playing.”

^{Fletcher is the County Championship's leading wicket-taker}

And a change of perspective has also helped: “I don’t want to say it's almost like I don’t give a fuck… it’s not that at all,” he adds. “But there is probably an element of, if it doesn’t go well, who gives a shit? You know what I mean?”

Fletcher’s attitude should not be mistaken for arrogance. Instead, this is someone wholeheartedly enjoying his surroundings while keeping the bigger picture in his peripheral vision. “I’ve been playing cricket for 13 years so I know how to bowl and I know how to bat,” he continues.

“So, if it doesn’t go well, it’s not the end of the world, is it? There’s another game next week, so we will see how that goes. The ‘fuck it’ mentality is the one that I think the best athletes have. I’ve realised it’s just a game, so try not to get too frustrated when I have bad days. Realistically you have lots more of them than good days across your career – just not this year as its been going so well!”

The obvious sliding doors moment would be the sickening head injury Fletcher suffered during a T20 Blast clash at Edgbaston back in 2017, Birmingham’s Sam Hain striking the ball back at him with such velocity that he sat out the remainder of the season.

Beneath the helmet, Harry Finch is taking his second chance

But he cites the arrival of children Freddie and Rosie as shifting his outlook. “Previously my main focus was cricket all of the time, whereas now I’ve got other things to do in life. I’ve had times when I’ve really hated cricket in a way – well, hate is a strong word - but definitely not enjoyed it.

“With two kids to look after, I try not to bring cricket home anymore. Don’t get me wrong, there are still times where I’m tired, frustrated and probably a bit grumpy. But I’ve got to cut the grass, I’ve got to load the dishwasher, I’ve got to do my washing. There’s a lot more to life than cricket. The big thing has been getting my life in order away from the game.”

A practical example is a change to his match-day routine. He is speaking to The Cricketer ahead of a home Friday night T20 clash: “I hate these games as I’m a morning person who is up at six o’clock. I used to be a bit of a nightmare and would go in with Andy Pick and practise yorkers for forty minutes at 9.30am just so I could do something. I was that buzzing for 14,000 at Trent Bridge on a Friday night.

^{Fletcher made his Nottinghamshire debut in 2008}

“I still put thought into it but these days my preparation starts as soon as I get to the ground. Before that I take the kids to school in the morning, potter at home, watch a bit of Netflix and, before I know it, it’s time to go in. If you get too wrapped up in all of it – if you can’t get away from it – it becomes really tiring. That’s when it becomes stressful.”

Fletcher’s path to the professional game would these days be considered unorthodox.  Growing up in Bulwell, football was the main sport on offer during his school years.

He helped Cantrell Primary to the finals of the Adidas Predator Cup, scoring a half-way line left-footed volley to take them to Old Trafford. He also appeared at Wembley for Nottingham City Boys and turned out for Notts County youth sides despite his Nottingham Forest allegiances. A goalkeeper, his release at 14 came owing to a lack of agility.

But cricket? “I used to play with a tennis ball on my driveway a bit and when we went to Skegness beach. Otherwise, it wasn’t really on the agenda. I’m not from a cricketing background and so it sprung up on me. One day someone said ‘do you fancy a game?’ And I just ran up and bowled.”

Despite using left-handed gloves on his maiden hard-ball outing – no-one had informed him there was a distinction – Fletcher went on to play for Nottinghamshire U15s through to U17s. He did not make the academy cut. “At that stage it was the end of the road,” he recalls. “I didn’t expect to get a contract. It was ‘thank you very much, all the best for your career, enjoy your cricket on a Saturday’ - which I did to be fair.”

He continued to turn out for Papplewick & Linby in the Notts Premier League, counting Phil DeFreitas, Mark Footitt, Charles Dagnall and Kosala Kulasekara among his contemporaries.

Even then, life as a professional athlete was not in his sights: “I played for the social side. I enjoyed going out on the Friday, rocking up a bit dusty, doing it again the Saturday night, and then playing Sunday league cricket with your mates and having a good laugh. Back then a couple of paracetamols and a double sausage and egg McMuffin and you were ready to go really. I couldn’t do it now but at 18 years old you are flying around.”

But 462 runs and 23 wickets in 2007 led DeFreitas – then on the Nottinghamshire coaching staff – to bring Fletcher into the second XI fold. His first-class bow came against Oxford UCCE in April 2008 and the following summer he was taking the new ball with Ryan Sidebottom at Old Trafford. “It was surreal. The year before I was paying to go and watch them on a Friday night. All of a sudden, you’re stood next to Graeme Swann, Chris Read and Paul Franks thinking: ‘Wow, I’m amongst it’.

“The lads were really welcoming: I think they enjoyed the person was. I’d come from nowhere really, from a different background. They embraced it as much as me. Being a local lad always helps. There were some big dogs in that dressing room but I wouldn’t say it was intimidating – I’d say it was exciting. I thought it was amazing to be training with them.”

Fletcher has since established himself as one of the most-loved characters on the county circuit. Everyone has their own tale to tell: Alex Hales would need several additional hands to count the number of times the pair were hauled in for a dressing down from Mick Newell following a late one – Marcus Trescothick faux-headbutted him at a wedding reception, while Chris Woakes’ decision not to walk was accepted by Fletcher on the basis that he was ‘a good lad’. The umpire was also let off the hook for the same reason, but Fletcher had everyone in stitches when he turned to Ian Bell and proclaimed: ‘I’m not sure about you though!’

James Anderson at 1,000

But none of that should detract from his on-field achievements.

Fletcher is a fine cricketer who has to date made 275 Nottinghamshire appearances, snaring 550 wickets. Along the way he has collected winners’ medals in the County Championship (2010), the YB40 (2013), the Royal London One Day Cup (2017) and the T20 Blast twice (2017 and 2020).

Read rated Fletcher highly enough to trust him with the first over in a Lord’s final ahead of Harry Gurney, James Pattinson and Stuart Broad, while in 2015 Alec Stewart took him to the Kia Oval on loan. He is a rare modern proponent of the yorker, a skill honed on Buckley Ridges’ postage stamp club ground in Victoria.

Key to Fletcher’s longevity has been fitness. Not a natural athlete, having weighed in at 125kg during his first season on the Trent Bridge staff, he famously asked Wayne Noon whether being the club’s heaviest bowler was a positive.

^{Fletcher has won five titles with Nottinghamshire}

But over the years he has worked tirelessly to ensure he is bowling sharp. As a youngster, he was hauled into “fat club sessions” to bring his weight down. “But I’ve proven that I can bowl my overs and win games. Not just in the first innings, but in the second innings - the speed of my spells doesn’t really change.

“The challenge for a lot of fast bowlers – particularly when they are younger – is can they get through a whole season? It’s all right getting through a couple of games but if you then break down and are out for six weeks, the captain and coach can’t really rely on you.

“Over time trust is built that you can do your job, and now I’m left to do my own thing.  Don’t get me wrong: I wish I had a six pack but what I can do is perform consistently at a high level. But as long as you’re fit to do your job, that to me is showing a level of fitness.”

And Fletcher continues to strive to improve with the ball under the watchful eye of Kevin Shine, now Peter Moores’ assistant after almost 15 years as the ECB’s lead bowling coach.

“You’ve got to remember Shiney has seen more fast bowlers than the rest of us put together,” he says. “He’s not going to come in and start changing my action at 30-years-old. But he has tinkered a little bit and that's improved all aspects of my action and my bowling.

“You can’t take everything a coach says to you in, but you can get little snippets of information that add to your game which is what has happened. It’s not even technically – it’s more the tactical things that have been a real help.”

Amongst those tactical changes to bear fruit has been Fletcher’s use of the crease. Previously – like Andre Adams – he tended to come wider of the stumps: “Once you learn to use all of the crease, that’s when it comes together. You can start to work batters out then. You can see it happening if that makes sense? Rather than landing it on the same spot, from the same angle, all the time: they can line you up like that.

^{Fletcher is three wickets away from 50 for the County Championship season}

“A few years ago, I wasn’t coming tighter in. That takes out lbw and bowled a lot of time, and I could only really get the ball to go away from the right-hander. Coming in a bit tighter and trying to bowl down the line of the stumps brings all three types of dismissal in. That’s when it becomes fun! I used to get two and three-fers but now I’ve found a way of being effective over four days rather than just a couple.

When the County Championship resumes in September, Fletcher requires just three victims from games against Lancashire, Yorkshire, Somerset and Hampshire to reach a personal landmark for the first time. He is not though, prepared to settled for that.

“You say to 1,000 runs to batters and 50 wickets to bowlers at the start of the season, don’t you? So, it is a target and it would be nice to tick off as I’ve not got there yet, but I’m not going to stop when I get to 50. I want a season to remember and hopefully we will win the County Championship. If we win the title and I take 65, 70 wickets, I’ll be absolutely buzzing. Now that’s something that will get remembered for a long, long time!”

Having spent 1,000 days in the winless red-ball wilderness prior to this summer, it would be quite a party were the title to head to Nottingham. Either way, you can be sure Fletcher will be leading from the front.