JAMES COYNE: Pratt is destined to be remembered forever as the substitute fielder who ran out Ricky Ponting from cover in the fourth Test of the 2005 Ashes at Trent Bridge
Gary Pratt is destined to be remembered forever as the substitute fielder who ran out Ricky Ponting from cover in the fourth Test of the 2005 Ashes at Trent Bridge – playing a famous part in England taking a 2-1 lead. But Pratt was also a promising left-handed batsman who scored well for England Under-19s and Durham until a drop-off in form led to his release in 2006.
Since then he has played National Counties cricket for Cumberland (recently renamed Cumbria), and has just relinquished the captaincy after 12 years in which he led them to the 2012 Knockout Trophy and 2015 Championship. He also skippered Richmondshire CC to four North Yorkshire & South Durham League titles plus an ECB Club Championship win in the space of eight years.
Aside from playing cricket you work at the Lorimers4Cricket sports shop in Bishop Auckland…
I had a venture with a storage business that went wrong, and then went right! From there I got into the sports retail trade, which is interesting, dealing with all the different manufacturers. It is named after the footballer Peter Lorimer, but he actually had nothing to do with the shop. It was a guy called William Blenkiron, who played for Warwickshire and then moved back up to north and wanted to start a sports shop. Lorimer had links with Bishop Auckland, so Blenkiron approached him to put his name to the business.
You couldn’t do it now: imagine David Beckham Sports! After you’ve paid all the image rights you might have some money left! The majority of business we do these days is online. We do clothing for about 150 clubs through Gray-Nicolls and are very busy with that from February to June, and then we’re quite quiet in-store for cricket. We also do kit for the local rugby team. These days you need so much kit for club cricket, especially at the higher level with all the coloured clothing and the clads to put over your pads and so on. If someone moves clubs it costs them a fair bit!
Why have you given up the Cumbria captaincy?
With it being a transition period getting more Cumbrian players into the side, it doesn’t make sense for me to stand in the way. Michael Slack is taking over and he’s got a good cricket brain so I have no problem with it. I gave up my club captaincy a couple of years ago and I’ve enjoyed just being able to play without thinking every ball. Even though I was captaining club and county I relished the responsibility – I enjoyed the times it was going badly as much as the times it was going well.
Pratt alongside Michael Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff on the open-top bus to Trafalgar Square in September 2005
How has National Counties cricket – other than the rebranding from ‘Minor Counties’ – changed in the 15 years you’ve been playing?
I think it has changed massively. It gives local lads a great opportunity now. It’s quite harsh on a young lad of 19, 20 or 21 who’s been released by a first-class county, isn’t really established and will struggle to break into one of those few wildcard spots in a National Counties side. Look at Richard Gleeson, who was brilliant for us [between 2010 and 2015, before being spotted by Northamptonshire]. It’ll be harder for someone like him, from Lancashire, to get back into first-class cricket via a National County. It becomes a bit of a risk to play that wildcard, so you tend to have quite experienced players like me among your wildcard players.
How is the balance between red and white-ball cricket at that level? The National Counties Championship is down to four group games per side now…
Everyone is getting T20 cricket shoved down their throats now, and I think it’s just a case of falling in line with the ECB. I love red-ball cricket above all, because it definitely is the ultimate test of a cricketer. Ask a first-class player and it’s just harder to play. Anyone can swing as hard as they can in a T20 and come off, but what does it really mean? Test and first-class cricket is more technically challenging. You find out a lot more about players over those three and four-day games. But at the top level why would you play for three or four days if you get paid so much for playing 20 overs?
People say National Counties cricket is dominated by spin bowling…
There is a lot of spin bowling. Obviously we had a genuinely quick bowler in Gleese. But right through National Counties and club cricket you don’t see as many fast bowlers. Everyone’s trying to bowl spin and not go for runs; not so much trying to get you out. If you go for an overseas pro and you don’t get a spinner, you’re foolish really.
You’ve had incredible success at Richmondshire CC. What’s the secret?
Having played against Richmond before their attitude was very much ‘let’s not get beat’, rather than try to win. When I came in 10 years ago it was to win trophies and lose that fear of failure, and a lot of the younger lads there have grown up with that attitude. I did shed a tear when we won the Club Championship. It was up there with winning the Minor Counties Championship and that Ashes moment, too.
How do you assess the state of club cricket?
Our league is a decent standard, especially when you’ve got the overseas professionals or overseas amateurs involved, but I think all over the country standards are slipping a bit in league cricket. Then again, this year the National Counties has been as strong as ever. I’ve no idea why.
The Oval, September 2005
Liam Livingstone was in your Cumberland side as a teenager. What was he like then?
He was very raw, a bit of a maverick. I remember one one-day game, we were both in and I said to him, “Well, we just need to knock it around here and we’ll win”. And he slog-swept it right to the guy on the line. That was a gobsmacking moment. But he’s just a very confident young cricketer with no scars, who backs his own ability whether it’s 5 for 3 or 150 for 3, which is perfect for high-level T20 now. He still bowls offies and leggies, which he was doing for us all those years ago aged 16 without being particularly standout at either!
He’s obviously worked on his bowling a lot. But it’s hard to see him playing Test cricket if he doesn’t play County Championship and work on his technique. You can’t have the best of both worlds. I vividly recall playing against Mike Atherton on first-class debut [at Old Trafford in 2000]. Having watched him on TV, I just thought he was a boring player. But I looked up at the scoreboard and he was on 40 in no time at all and I was thinking ‘where on earth has he got those?’ I just think a top red-ball player can adapt to a limited-overs game; I don’t think you can do it so easily the other way around.
Yet you were seen more as a one-day player at Durham...
Yes, even though I was technically quite good at the longer form. I did like the white-ball stuff, but back then it was sprinkled in rather than five games a week like it is now! I really liked the C&G Trophy, with the Minor Counties in it too, and they should definitely bring that back, but it would just be another fixture in a crowded calendar.
If they went to three divisions in the County Championship and 10 games a season they could free up more time in the schedule but I’m sure they would just shove more matches in rather than use it for practice. That was one of the frustrations at Durham: being on the road sometimes for two and a half weeks going from match to match, and we were furthest away from other counties.
You’ve said you were close to the England one-day side at one point…
I was a regular in red and white-ball in 2002 and 2003, and passed 1,000 Championship runs in 2003. I think I wasn’t too far away from being picked around the time of the 2003 World Cup. I’d top-scored for England Under-19 in India in 2000/01 and when Ian Bell was selected for the full side in New Zealand [2001/02] that gave us all a lift. But back then England one-day selection wasn’t as sophisticated and they didn’t take too many risks and tended to stick with the old guard.
How do you reflect on the fallout from the 2005 Ashes: the open-top bus ride, appearing at BBC Sports Personality of the Year and even on an Ashes special of The Weakest Link…
It was a bit daunting. But Anne Robinson’s bark was a lot worse than her bite. It was great when it happened, and as a young lad, I loved all the attention I got. But I don’t think it helped me in the long run. I think Durham’s attitude was that I wanted to be away with England more than I wanted to be with them playing 2nd XI cricket, trying to get runs under my belt. I’d scored runs for the second team that season, but it hadn’t done me any good, so I thought, ‘You know what, fine, if that’s what you want, I will try to spend time with the international side and see what it’s like to experience being in that dressing room.’ I think I learned a lot from it, but I don’t think it went down very well at Durham, especially when I was getting all these headlines about the Ashes.
*That* run out
You were released in 2006, barely a year after the Ashes. Why?
In hindsight I should have moved to Nottinghamshire in 2004. Mick Newell came in for me but I’d just been player of the year at Durham and I didn’t see any reason to move. Then 2005 happened and while it was great with England, I just wasn’t getting picked regularly by Durham. The captain that year was Mike Hussey and I just didn’t have a lot to do with him. I remember coming off the field at Trent Bridge and picking up the voicemail to rush back on the fifth day for a one-day game against Scotland.
And then they didn’t pick me. I don’t know if that was Hussey getting me back for something – I’ve no idea. I got on just about OK with Martyn Moxon. He was very regimented in his coaching methods – he’d have it all laid out before a day’s training, who was batting where, who was bowling. And if you came in and you just felt you wanted throwdowns you’d have to have a net anyway. That’s changed these days – now you can’t push players down an avenue against their will, because there might be mental health concerns.
It seems strange that you didn’t get a deal at another county...
I didn’t really push it, if I’m honest with you. I wasn’t expecting to be released. They sat me down and said it was to make way for younger lads, but I was 24 myself! If I’d had a bit more about me I’ve had questioned it and asked the reasons: ‘OK, I’ve had a s*** year but you can’t bin lads off like that.’ At Durham it was the likes of Michael Gough, Gordon Muchall, Nicky Peng and me trying to make our way at a county that had had about eight overseas players come in and almost all get injured, and not much experience alongside us to bank the runs. I wish I could have played alongside class players like Dale Benkenstein and been part of winning those County Championships in 2008 and 2009.
Instead you ended up at Cumberland...
Yes, and the vibe is totally different. The higher you go in cricket the more selfish everyone becomes, because it’s all about ensuring your next contract. But if you do well it tends to mean the team does well. I think I got paid for the first two years at Cumberland. And as soon as I stopped getting paid to play I enjoyed it much more. Obviously you get travel expenses for going around the country.
If you took a professional cricketer out of their situation and landed them in National Counties or club cricket, unpaid, I guarantee most of them would enjoy it a hell of a lot more. I wish they could all do it in a way. It ceases to be your job, something that’s do or die, and starts to be something you do at the weekends for enjoyment, and I’ve stressed that to the younger lads I’ve come across who talk about taking £50 or £100 a game or whatever. It would be an interesting experiment, wouldn’t it?
Interview by James Coyne
This article was published in the November edition of The Cricketer - the home of the best cricket analysis and commentary, covering the international, county, women's and amateur game