Full county season represents next step in Brandon Glover's rapid rise

NICK FRIEND: The Netherlands seamer enjoyed a stop-start first season at Wantage Road but has all the tools to be a major success in county cricket

In an ideal world, this would be Brandon Glover’s second full season at Northamptonshire, having returned to Wantage Road in the spring after lighting up the T20 World Cup in Australia with his raw pace and a fearlessness born out of a meteoric rise.

Only, the circumstances of the last 12 months mean that this campaign will still be Glover’s second at his new home, but the first in which he can begin in April and crank up the speed gun for a five-month stretch. There was no major global tournament Down Under for him and his Dutch teammates over the winter – that will have to wait until this coming autumn, though in India instead, two years after qualifying. The Netherlands have not played since.

That, however, is for a different conversation. The immediate focus of Glover’s mind is on life under David Ripley at a club where he feels refreshingly at home, given how little time he has spent as part of the setup.

Having signed last January, life changed almost immediately: a pre-season tour of Singapore was cut short and the pandemic halted any play until August. When the game resumed, Northamptonshire were the solitary side to record a positive test, causing the abandonment of their Bob Willis Trophy fixture against Gloucestershire; though Glover was not the positive tester, he was still forced to quarantine for ten days in a house overlooking the ground.

All told, it means he has played just seven times since a man-of-the-match display against Papua New Guinea in the final of the T20 World Cup qualifying competition. His first-class debut against Somerset brought two wickets in each innings, followed by six appearances in the Vitality Blast.

If there was any frustration at a stop-start beginning to his county career, 2021 has begun rather differently: Oval Invincibles picked him up on a deal ahead of this summer’s edition of The Hundred. He calls it “a huge confidence boost” and a reward for plenty of groundwork laid in recent times, primarily in the Oranje of the Netherlands.

He credits Chris Liddle as well, the former left-arm seamer for Sussex and Gloucestershire, who worked with Glover as bowling coach for the Dutch side before taking on a similar role with Northamptonshire.

^{This is Brandon Glover's second season at Northants}

“I think the big deciding factor (in joining Northants) was Chris Liddle,” he says. “He had this plan for me and told me what Northants were looking to do and that I would be a big part of the bowling aspect and that I could work with him.

“Having a bowling coach who knows how you work and how you operate and what gets you going is massive. He’s drastically improved my bowling – even in 2019 with the Dutch. Just working with him there for a few months, suddenly there was a massive change. It just seemed like a winning deal.”

That feeling added to an underlying sense of familiarity: Glover and Northamptonshire batsman Ricardo Vasconcelos have been best of friends since starting out at primary school in Johannesburg – so much so that they now live together.

“We played together in every single cricket team – our school team, our first team, our provincial team,” adds Glover. “He has been a massive part of my journey as a cricketer and also as a friend.”

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Vasconcelos’ presence wasn’t in itself a clincher, but he had already helped to arrange for Glover to play a handful of second team games in the preceding years, which might just have nudged the door ajar. “Having your best mate in the team always helps,” he laughs.

In reality, though, the principal component in Glover’s rapid progression has been his pace. It was what piqued the interest of Netherlands coach Ryan Campbell in 2018, what enticed Ripley to hand him a three-year deal on the back of nine career first-class appearances and why The Hundred came calling as well.

“I wouldn’t say I’m where I even want to be yet,” he explains. “I want to be able to get up to 150kph – the 94mph mark – consistently.”

That last word is key. He revisits it a moment later. For, he wasn’t always this sharp, even if he had the ability to hurry batsmen through youth cricket. It was only when a growth spurt hit, aged 15, that he when through the gears.

^{No man in the world took more T20I wickets than Glover in 2019}

“It was actually quite a funny story,” he says. “We had four guys in my school team who were all pretty much the same pace. In the early season, I got dropped and in that winter I just worked really hard. I came back and I was bowling about 20kph quicker than anyone else. It was quite bizarre, but I think it was just about getting some good strength behind me and working hard. Since then, I’ve always just had that extra pace – it’s got quicker and quicker.”

Like all fast bowlers, he is fascinated by far he might be able to push himself, even if he concedes that there is a balance to be had.

He continues: “In terms of pace, 150kph is a high mark, so whether you get there or not, it’s a goal I’m working towards. But actually, the main thing about pace is consistent pace. There are days when I pitch it up and bowl the odd 90mph ball, but then there are days when I can’t reach that and I’m hitting mid-80s. I want to consistently be above 85mph and into the 90s in almost every game I play. That is just getting my strength right and homing in on that.

“But also, accuracy and skill are just as important and even more important, especially in white-ball cricket. You get guys who bowl really quick, but if you get it wrong then batsmen love the pace and they’ll whack you all over the park, especially in T20 when you’ve only got three men out in the powerplay.

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“You definitely have to know where to bowl it and have the skills to back it up: slower balls and change-ups become so essential. You have to have that in your artillery. Yes, you can bowl quick, but if you don’t have those, you’re going to get punished.”

So far, Glover has excelled in that regard. He ended his first year as an international cricketer with 28 wickets in 19 games – the second-highest T20I wicket-haul ever in a calendar year and the leading figure worldwide for 2019.

That success validated a bold decision to shift his life away from South Africa to the Netherlands, the nation of his maternal family.

Campbell had called him while he was still at Stellenbosch University, where he was studying for a degree in accounting, and asked if he would be keen to try out with them while they were training in Pretoria ahead of the qualifiers for the 2019 World Cup.

^{Glover played for South Africa Under-19s before switching to represent the country of his maternal family}

“Straight away,” he recalls, “they were pretty much like: ‘If you can come over to the Netherlands for a full season, you’d have a good shot of playing international cricket.’

“I couldn’t do that in 2018 because I was finishing off my degree. My thing was that I wanted to finish my degree and get education behind me, so I could have a full crack at cricket. It was worth it to get the degree – if cricket didn’t work out or an injury came, I wanted to make sure that I had that.

“I had two months off in June and July, so I went over to the Netherlands, practised with them and played club cricket just to suss out the situation to see if it was somewhere where I wanted to be.

“I was blown away by how professional it was, all the opportunities which were presented. In 2019, I decided to have a full crack at it, so I moved over in April and cracked on from there. It really was a piece of luck.

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“It was quite a big shift. When you grow up playing in South Africa, you always envision yourself playing for the Proteas as a youngster and that kind of thing.”

He had been a teammate of Wiaan Mulder, now a Test allrounder, at national under-19 level and represented Boland in his fledgling first-class career.

“But I just thought my cricket wasn’t picking up at the pace I wanted it to at 21,” says Glover. “That’s when you start thinking about how you’re actually going to get into the professional game. For various reasons, I just thought the opportunities in the Netherlands were better.

“Also, it was representing the country where my family comes from. I thought it was quite cool to go back to my roots. It was quite special: I got my call-up five days before my Dutch granny passed away, so that was quite nice to make my debut and represent that side of the family. It has worked out very well.

“I always had the goal of playing county cricket, I always thought it was one of the best local circuits in the world. I knew the Dutch option was there. When you grow up playing for South Africa Under-19s, you always think you’re going to play in the South African system. But I’m glad it happened.

“Looking back on it, it happened really quickly: getting the call-up to the Dutch in 2019, getting the contract for the county in 2020, a Hundred deal in 2021 as well. It is sort of mind-blowing, the fact that I’m going to be able to go to World Cups with the Netherlands and move their cricket forward as well. It’s something that’s really cool and special to be a part of as well.”

There were brief concerns last season as the post-Brexit permutations were ironed out about what it might mean for a young seamer with a Dutch passport. But having made a point of signing for the EU settlement scheme as soon as he first arrived at Northamptonshire, there were no last-minute snags.

Competition for places will be intriguing in a bowling attack led by Ben Sanderson, with Wayne Parnell on board at Wantage Road as an all-format overseas player and Tom Taylor joining from Leicestershire late last season. However, the departures of Blessing Muzarabani and Brett Hutton might just free up space for a bit of pace.

And so, in keeping with his trajectory of the last three years, the stars could well be aligning for Brandon Glover.

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