Friendship, grief and mutual respect: The story of county cricket's genuine spin twins

NICK FRIEND - EXCLUSIVE: You sense that Matt and Callum Parkinson are mightily grateful for each other, perhaps now more than ever – at the end of a summer that brought cricketing success and family tragedy. That is what friends – and twins – are for

The final game of the County Championship season has come to a wet end. It is the deadest of rubbers – top against bottom; Lancashire promoted as champions; Leicestershire consigned to the wooden spoon.

And just quietly, Matt and Callum Parkinson have made history. Never before have twins taken each other’s wicket in a first-class game. Rarely, of course, have two twins had it in them to make it as professional athletes, both thriving at a similar skill.

After Matt dismisses Callum at Grace Road, Callum returns the favour when his brother – 16 minutes younger – comes to the crease.

The outside world affords itself a laugh; it is the kind of quirky statistic that, one day, might make its way into trivia circles.

Yet, the notion of twindom brings with it a unique bond, a special relationship, a deep pride in one another, a duty of care. The Parkinson brothers are entrenched in a shared respect; this is a record that both would happily do without.

“It’s not a nice week for either of us,” Matt reflects. “We’re on eggshells, really. This could have been four days of pain for either of us watching the other one struggle. I didn’t enjoy getting him out. It’s not a nice week.”

“It’s a very bizarre feeling,” Callum adds. He reckons it is the first time he has bowled at Matt in a proper game. “On the one hand, you’re delighted to have a first-class wicket. But at the same time, you want your brother to do really well.”

Even in an unprecedented year for English cricket, few have gone better than Matt Parkinson. A red-ball promotion with Lancashire and personal success in both white-ball competitions, the consequence is a place in both England squads for their tour of New Zealand.

For a 22-year-old leg-spinner, it represents some feat. In truth, however, that scarcely does justice to what he has achieved in a summer marred sadly by family tragedy. Matt and Callum lost their mother midway through the season; if it is possible for two lifelong best friends to be brought closer, then this has done it.

There is a heart-warming joy in each of their voices at what the other has attained. There has never been a sense of rivalry between them, only a shared dream of success.

“I lean on him quite a lot for advice,” Callum admits. “At times, when Leicester have struggled this year, doubts have crept into my mind and he’s been the first person that I’ll go to. He knows the right thing to say and he has got a great cricket brain.”

The duo heard of Matt’s England call-up during that final game almost simultaneously; he was bowling to Callum as Steven Croft at silly point received a notification on his smartwatch.

On one hand, how Matt might have treasured the emotion of a phone call from Ed Smith. But on the other, how wonderful that, in this summer of all summers, Callum was there to share in the moment.

^{Matt Parkinson is in England's Test and T20 squads for the tour of New Zealand}

“From growing up facing him all the time, you kind of work him out,” Callum reminisces as he looks back on a childhood spent joined at the hip. “I probably never truly realised how special a talent Matt was until I was facing him in that game.

“I could read him like the back of my hand, but four or five years go by and you don’t really face him. That was the one thing that struck me there – how good he is with his skill.

“The call-up really just reaffirmed what I was thinking while I was batting against him: ‘Bloody hell, he’s not bowled a bad ball yet.’

“I know the hard work he’s put in to get there and, if anything, it just motivates me to know – having watched his journey so closely – that special things can happen. There’s no jealousy or bitterness with it. I’m going to try and get out there and watch when I can. I’m absolutely over the moon for him.”

***

Matt laughs. “We are the same person, really,” he says. You sense that both would happily accept that claim. There is a mutual idolisation, a genuine admiration at what the other has become.

Just as Callum is in awe of what Matt has accomplished, Matt reciprocates with an immense respect for his brother’s tenacity and sheer willpower.

While Matt’s success at Lancashire has given him stability – he only moved out of the family home in the last year, Callum has found his place on the county circuit through a more roundabout route.

“I’m 16 minutes older, but he’s a bit more grown up than me,” Callum admits. He carries a wonderfully candid nature. Nothing is off limits. There is no jostling for familial position.

“Matt’s just bought his first house and settled down with the girlfriend, so I see him as the older brother. He looks after me. And now, he’s a big boy playing for England.

“I was always well aware that as an out and out bowler he was ahead of me and obviously still is. That’s why there was never really much competition. He was always a bit of a mentor and a spin-bowling guide when I first started.”

Matt was always destined for big things; England simply represents the next logical step on his ascent through the game. He has not had it easy – nobody has, but he has had it easier than Callum. On that, they can both agree.

There was a time when Callum might never have made it. A left-arm spinner and underrated batsman these days, he opened the bowling at the Bunbury Festival as a 15-year-old seamer – an unlikely tearaway. “I was really quick, rapid,” he recalls. “But I just wasn’t tall enough. I’m probably the height I am now that I was back then.”

A chat with his father and a self-probationary period followed in the nets as he swapped a long bustling long run-up for a skip, a jump and a tweak of the fingers. “I had to see if I was any good,” he says.

And then, six years on, here we are, here he is. Callum Parkinson, a fine cricketer earning his corn as Leicestershire’s frontline spinner. It represents a remarkable six-year transformation, born out of an incessant drive and a series of honest, necessary gambles.

“It probably helped that my brother captained Lancashire Under-17 when we were 16, so he bowled me loads of overs when he probably shouldn’t have done,” he recalls with a chuckle. “The year afterwards, I captained so I bowled myself loads.”

Matt’s success meant that Callum was forced to change amateur clubs. “He’d bowl from one end, so I didn’t get a bowl.” He swapped the comfort zone for a lower standard in a struggling team.

“I spent a year getting beaten every week, but I bowled 25 overs every weekend,” he says. “Great club, poor side. It was vital for me. It was a tough year, looking back, but it made me as a bowler.”

Shortly afterwards, Callum took the plunge, leaving Lancashire for Derbyshire. It was, he knew, the only decision, but a hard one, nonetheless.

“It was tough because I could see a path for myself – I was playing a few 2s games, played a bit of England age-group, whereas he didn’t get that,” Matt explains.

Callum is equally philosophical. “To be brutally honest, I don’t think I’d have broken through at Lancs,” he reflects. There is a rare maturity to the Parkinson twins; they are world-aware – they have had to be in recent months. Along with his brother, Callum lists Simon Kerrigan, Stephen Parry and Arron Lilley, all of whom he viewed as men in his way at Old Trafford.

And so, he rejected a place on the club’s academy and moved on – a teenager simply desperate to make it. A year later, he moved on again to Leicestershire, where he has found a home and is continuing to develop his all-round game. He has turned himself into a fine bowler, while he has the potential to become a top-six batsman.

^{Callum Parkinson left Lancashire as a teenager to join Derbyshire, before moving to Leicestershire}

“If you’d have said when we were 15 or 16 and Callum was first transitioning into bowling left-arm spin that he’d be a professional cricketer whose primary position would be as a spinner in first-class cricket, I’d have laughed,” Matt confesses.

“That’s probably a bit harsh, but he was a long way off. It’s still massively early days for both of us, but for him to have had the career he’s had so far and taken those decisions, I’m so proud and pleased for him.”

There are no platitudes here, only genuine pride. When you have shared everything – from womb and birthdays to homes and holidays, the rapport is a natural by-product.

Callum’s voice carries no resentment at the contrasting roads their journeys have taken, rather an enormous self-satisfaction at the route in which his own determination has directed him.

“I’m sure he won’t mind me saying it, but Matt has had it quite easy – staying at home until last year, playing in the academy with his mates, surrounded by stuff that he knows,” he explains.

“I take quite a bit of pride in the risks I took to get where I am. I didn’t see a pathway past my brother, really. I look at the journey that I could have had. I’m not sure whether I’d have played as much cricket if I had stayed at Lancashire for another couple of years.

“Whenever young cricketers ask my advice, one of the main things I say is that you have to be brave enough to see the bigger picture.

“I saw a lot of good cricketers at Lancashire stay there until they were 18 and then it can be too late to get a move. Then you end up trialling and life catches up with you.”

His tale is evidence of the courage he preaches. He has flown under the radar, but his journey is an example for others to follow and admire.

***

On July 16, Maria Parkinson passed away suddenly. A tragedy for a tightknit family, a mother adored by her sons. The outpouring of support on social media for both twins was immense.

Callum was midway through a Championship game when the news came. Matt had just taken 10 wickets in an innings victory over Sussex. That they have come through this summer with such flying colours is testament and more to the strength of their bond.

“When it happened, I didn’t really know what to do,” Callum reflects. Both he and Matt are more than happy to talk about their mum, an enormous figure in all that they know.

Callum is thoughtful and candid throughout, but his voice slows here as he searches for the right words.

“I rang my dad and my brother. It was day two at Cheltenham and we were fielding all day.

“Looking back, it was the best thing – to get out there and, as tough as it was, to keep your mind occupied and be carried by the other blokes on the field. It was the best thing that could have happened.

“It doesn’t get any easier but being busy and keeping the support system of all your teammates around you was massive.

“It has just given us a bigger picture of perspective. In years gone by, if I’ve had a bad day at cricket, I’d feel like it’s the end of the world. But it put into perspective what it’s all about, why we do it and why we started playing in the first place.

“It has been incredibly tough, but I’m incredibly proud of myself and Matt – of how we’ve managed to pull through and keep going to the standard that we have.”

pic.twitter.com/9z65CUnZzv

— Matt Parkinson (@mattyparky96) July 16, 2019

Two days later, Lancashire and Leicestershire were due to meet in a T20 game at Grace Road. Both Parkinson brothers were named in their respective teams. The match was washed out, but the occasion symbolised something far greater.

Cricket became a means of grieving. Close to 50 players and staff from the two counties were present at the funeral. More than a touch of class. A sign, perhaps, of the esteem in which both 22-year-olds are held by those around them.

“They have been absolutely amazing,” Matt says of his club, his family’s club. Cricket, after all, is just a game. “I wouldn’t have been able to get through that time without the support of my teammates.”

It is a game, though, that now carries added meaning. His England call-up certainly does; it is both a reward for his own resolute courage and an opportunity to mark the memory of his mother with something extra-special.

“I think that’s how I’ve looked at it and why I’ve found success on the field,” Matt reflects.

“You try and use the negative to turn it into as much a positive as you can. For me, it’s almost a case of trying to carry on and try to plod through.

“There’s more emotion there in this England selection for my family, knowing how proud she would be and how much she was a part of the journey that we had to make it to this point.

“It’s just obviously a shame that she won’t be here to see me make my England debut, fingers crossed I do.

“The past few months have been about doing it for her and having her with me all the time. I know she’ll be looking down on me in New Zealand and cheering me on, even if I’m carrying the drinks.”

***

“People don’t truly understand it unless they are a twin themselves,” Matt sighs.

“We can read each other like a book. We’ve grown up together with the same hobbies, same friends, same school, same subjects. We are very close.”

Rarely, however, were they in the same classes. Parental intervention had seen to that.

Cricket was sewn as a seed in their minds as early as either can remember. Both agree that Callum was keener and superior through the early years. His interest came sooner, he was the more natural sportsman.

When the bug struck, it manifested itself as an insatiable obsession. Matt recalls what he describes as “the perfect cricket room – a landing that you could bowl on and then it went into a big room”.

It became the scene of epic Test matches between the young brothers. “We played all the time,” Callum adds. “We’d have plenty of fights, throwing cricket bats at each other and a few tears when we were younger.”

Typical kids with their typical dreams. Few are able to live theirs out like this, alongside one another, against one another, in support of one another.

^{Matt and Callum Parkinson grew up with a steel, indoor net in their home}

As enthusiasm increased and the Parkinson boys outgrew what had once been their “perfect cricket room”, it was replaced by an indoor net. “A big steel thing,” Matt calls it – a contraption fitted to the dimensions of the walls.

“It was impressive. You couldn’t do as much as you’d think, but it was a very impressive piece of equipment. You couldn’t use a hard ball because there was a laminate floor underneath, but you could have proper throwdowns.

“That’s probably where the love of the game grew – pretending you were certain players and stuff. We were absolute badgers growing up. Nice memories. If I ever have kids, it’s something I’ll look to do – put a stupid steel cage in the house!”

It all meant that Bolton School had quite a cricket team, with Haseeb Hameed in the same year and, therefore, a third member of that year group to make it professionally.

In a family of twin first-class cricketers, it seems almost disingenuous to suggest that it never had to be this way. But that is the truth; whereas some youngsters become the object through which to play out their parents’ own dreams, the Parkinson household was a cricketing haven because that was the choice of the twins.

They would focus at school because their mum would remind them of the need for a backup plan. When Callum joined Derbyshire, his father would drive him to and from Derby three times a week so he could complete his A-Levels.

“We wouldn’t be in the position we’re in without our parents,” Matt admits. “They invested their lives in us being cricketers, while also finding the right balance between pushing us to be the best we could be, but also making it our decision – that we actually wanted to be cricketers.

“We never felt under pressure; we never had to play cricket. It was always because we wanted to.

“That probably gave us the relaxation that we could go out and perform, knowing that we were safe off the field.”

***

October 24, 1996: the day that a pair of professional cricketers arrived, just a quarter of an hour apart.

Next year, each division will have a Parkinson; they won’t have to worry about facing each other in four-day cricket. They will never stop chatting though – “all day, most days,” Callum laughs.

“It is very rare that you get two brothers – let alone twins – playing county cricket. It’s brilliant that we get to share this journey together.”

You sense that the pair are mightily grateful for each other, perhaps this summer more than most. That is what friends – and twins – are for.

“Especially after what’s gone on in the last few months, you can’t help but feel like you are adults,” Matt reflects, his mother always at the forefront of his mind.

“You’ve lost that point of your childhood. We are not on our own, but it’s just dad. Obviously, we’ve got his partner as well, but we’ve had to grow up even more.

“It has brought us closer together and it is nice to come through all that. Even before that, we came through the age-group sides together achieving what we wanted to achieve. To be adults living that out together is lovely to look back on.”