Dillon Pennington: Another cab off the rank

NICK FRIEND: The 20-year-old is just another member of a production line of promising young cricketers, handed the keys to a life as a professional athlete

Dillon Pennington is looking back on where it all began.

A Shropshire boy, becoming a man at Worcestershire: by no means the first, certainly not the last. This is what they do at New Road; an institution through which committed, talented youngsters roll seamlessly into a setup built to accommodate them.

A beacon of self-sufficiency in an era and an industry where sustainability is readily usurped by greed and short-termism.

The 20-year-old is just another member of a production line of promising young cricketers, handed the keys to a life as a professional athlete.

It is an endless list – too many to lay out, though Ed Barnard, Ben Cox and Pat Brown – three men of different ages but similar backgrounds – have sprouted to form the fulcrum of a fascinating, thrilling team: a victory for coaching and for a patient trust in a refreshing philosophy.

And Pennington, the next cab off the rank, is immensely grateful for it.

He is terrific company – a mixture of charming humility, awestruck innocence and a raw excitement at what lies ahead on the horizon. Quite simply, he is thrilled to be playing professional cricket.

“It’s almost really surreal to play with a figure like Moeen,” he admits. Like so many of his peers, he speaks of the England allrounder with a sense of wonder.

“It was only two years ago that I was watching him on TV and thinking that it would be amazing to play with him. Then all of a sudden, I am playing with him. He’s just ridiculous. He makes it look so easy.”

You see, there was a time when Pennington, Shrewsbury born and bred, wasn’t sure this would happen. A chance call-up in 2018 to England’s Under-19 World Cup party changed all that, with his height and pace exciting onlookers back at home. Injuries to others had created an opening, but it was still for Pennington to grasp.

What followed has been somewhat inevitable – a new contract, further plaudits, inevitable injuries and, of course, opportunities. For, that is the Worcestershire way. It is how they do it, how they operate. If you’re good enough, you’re old enough.

“I thank them all the time,” he says of the debt he feels to a county that has presented him with a tangible pathway. “And actually, the value on the games I’ve played in as well.”

He has played 31 times across all three formats since making his first-team bow in the cut and thrust of a local derby against Warwickshire last year.

“It’s brilliant. It’s nice to have that backing from a club. You look at some of the clubs and they look like real hard clubs to play first-team cricket at.

“Worcester is hard; they make you work really hard for it, but it’s nice that they back their younger people rather than go for older, more experienced people, I suppose.

“But then they balance their squad perfectly with people like Wayne Parnell, who’s unbelievable as someone to learn off. He talks to us loads and then you have the overseas guys like Martin Guptill and Hamish Rutherford, who pass on their information.

“They are always wanting to get the young players in, which is obviously brilliant. It’s a real confidence-builder for us all. Playing with the young players is great – I’m good friends with Adam Finch and it’s good to have that bond. Being able to play first-team cricket with him is brilliant.

“They are really, really good at giving us opportunities. That just makes us better cricketers, doesn’t it?”

^{Pennington impressed at the 2018 Under-19 World Cup}

To a degree, this is the crux of it for Worcestershire: friendship and familiarity. He classes Brown – a year older than him – as another “close mate”. There is also a nod to Jack Haynes, the 18-year-old local boy, who is enjoying a run in the red-ball side.

That, you sense, is Pennington’s character – proud of what he has achieved, chuffed for others. He is an impressive talker, both modest and self-aware, chatty and game for a laugh.

To dust off an overused cliché, he is living a lifelong dream. There was a time when rugby competed with cricket for his affections, but not now.

As he jokes, it could scarcely be further from the weekends of his childhood; during his school days, he would wash the bottoms of lawnmowers with a pressure-washer as a Saturday job. “It’s a bit different now,” he points out.

That Pennington now finds himself preparing for a second consecutive T20 Blast Finals Day is in no small part down to his efforts at last year’s World Cup.

Under Jon Lewis’ leadership, he took six wickets in five games, though deserved far more. He was the spearhead of England’s attack; the quickest on show and his team’s go-to man.

“I don’t think I’d be anywhere near where I am now if I hadn’t gone there,” he admits of his own tournament. “It has accelerated everything massively really.”

Ultimately, it was a curious competition; a seventh-place finish was balanced out by those who pointed to injuries, while others suggested that England had sent far stronger squads in the past.

Yet, Harry Brook, Ethan Bamber, Liam Banks, Tom Banton and Will Jacks – alongside Pennington – have all played semi-regularly this season for their counties.

“I was thinking about it the other day,” he recalls. “I learned so much from the likes of Banton, Brook and Jacks, who had been in the squad quite a lot.”

Naturally, attention soon turns to Banton, as it often has done in 2019, with the cricketing universe queuing up to lavish praise on the Somerset batsman. Quite simply, none of what he has achieved comes as a surprise – not least to Pennington, who has witnessed him at closer quarters than most.

“He was always unbelievable growing up,” he says. “He was always the best player in Bunbury and the best player in his teams. I’m not surprised. It’s just when it clicks and when it comes off. I think he will be playing international cricket pretty soon.

“He’s just been unbelievable this summer, hasn’t he? He’s also done it in red-ball stuff as well, so it’s not like he’s a one-dimensional player either. He’s just proving how good a player he actually is. Everyone knew he was anyway.”

If Banton took this year’s T20 Blast by storm – he is still the competition’s second-top run-scorer despite Somerset failing to qualify from the group stages, it is also where Pennington has performed most regularly. Finals Day represents the prize at the end of another season of development.

^{Pennington has been a regular in the Worcestershire side looking to retain their T20 crown}

Bowling fast is a tough skill – less a joyous artform, more a labour of endurance. Pennington, however, is built for it; a broad-shouldered trier desperate to improve. He was a keen rugby player, before he gave up the game to give cricket his full attention.

“When I finished playing in lower sixth, it was then that I really nailed down on cricket,” he says. “It all really kicked off from there.

“It was a joint plan from dad, Worcester and myself. I wasn’t fully into it, but it happened and that obviously helped me. I kept coming back from rugby games injured, so it probably wasn’t the smartest thing. From then, I was full into wanting to play professional cricket like I have been all my life.”

That will has been tested: Pennington found himself on the end of a barrage from Luke Wright and Phil Salt in Worcestershire’s quarter-final win at Hove against Sussex – an unlikely victory, inspired almost solely by Moeen.

Here, Pennington can afford a wry chuckle. It is easier, of course, having come through a tough evening to qualify for Finals Day, but he knows his place as a young pretender on the ruthless T20 scene. Going the distance is part of the job. The key is in the response.

“It’s just so hard to bowl in that powerplay,” he laughs, recalling that brutal assault. There are few pairs who go harder than Sussex’s opening duo.

“You don’t know where they’re going to hit it or how they’re going to hit it, but they do. It always seems to go for four. It’s really hard but you learn so much from bowling in that powerplay.

“It’s a daunting thing coming up against Phil Salt, who’s done it all tournament. I had never seen him ‘live’, but he hits the ball so hard, it’s ridiculous.

“It’s just really good watching them, but it’s also really scary in the warmup knowing that you’re going to come up against those two in the first over or first couple of overs and how hard they’re going to come at you. You’ve got to have a plan to counteract that.”

It is an honest appraisal from a relative novice, whose skillsets will only improve. Blessed with all that a fast bowler could want, that seems a given.

T20 cricket is sink or swim; the hammerings are merely part of a bowler’s cycle. Nobody has played more games for Worcestershire in this year’s competition.

^{Pennington is one of many youngsters at Worcestershire to have been given his opportunity}

When Pennington faced Surrey in 2018, he encountered the hulking figure of Morne Morkel. There can be few better judges on the county circuits than the South African great, whose Test career has left him with a rare wisdom.

In the same summer, a clash with Yorkshire brought the youngster face to face with Kane Williamson. If Morkel represents a totemic act to follow for any young seamer, then bowling to the New Zealand captain is the acid test – a man for whom patience is the only virtue, a game constructed on a commitment to punishing poor deliveries.

Morkel confessed to being “blown away” by the then-19-year-old, while Pennington ran through Yorkshire. Yet, talk is cheap and praise is cheaper. A worthless, long-term currency. He remains proud of the euphoria around those displays but expects more from himself. “I wouldn’t really say that I’ve backed that up this summer,” he reflects with a self-critical edge.

“Yes, it was really good for myself and for my confidence, but we can’t all just live off that. I had a really good conversation with Worcester the other day about how I can improve and where I’ve got to improve.

“I have got a lot to get better at, so that I can keeping backing up conversations like I had with those two amazing cricketers and amazing people. I’ve got to keep backing that up and striving to get better.”

While the medium-term goal is a place in an England Lions squad, the blueprint – as for every member of Worcestershire’s young battery of seamers – is Pat Brown.

The top wicket-taker in last year’s T20 Blast, he is set to be in demand this winter. He appeared last year as a relative unknown, a cracking advert for hard work, innovation and self-faith. He is beginning to reap the rewards.

Pennington is eager to follow in his mate’s footsteps; he knows the importance of expanding his range in the one-day game – he hits a solid length but has seen first-hand the value of a wider repertoire of tricks. “It will make me a better cricketer,” he explains.

Brown has found the going tougher this year – that much is only natural. In a world full of technology and endless analysis, sustaining the levels of his 2018 performances was an unlikely challenge.

Instead, he has proven almost a run per over more expensive, while 31 wickets have become 14. It is the nature of the beast. Yet, it remains a more than respectable effort, given the ruthlessness of the death overs.

“At such a young age, he’s so good to learn off because of what he did last year," Pennington says. “I chat for ages to him about T20 and how he goes about it and how he deals with the pressures around it.

“He’s got a great winter ahead of him, hopefully, going to some great places. I’m looking forward to when he gets back and he can talk me through how it was, who he’s met and how he went about it. He’s been brilliant.

“Hopefully, he’ll do it again at Finals Day what he did last year. Learning off each other is great; he’s really good in that way. He’s always talking about different things and how I should go and he’s really good in saying where you are doing something good or how you can improve.”

It is a healthy relationship, one that runs through the club. It makes days like Saturday all the more important, and occasions like last year’s Blast triumph all the more memorable.

Pennington didn’t play in last year’s showpiece but was at Edgbaston to watch the drama unfold and revel in the excitement of the underdogs’ glory. This time around, things will be different; any celebrations will be muted – the endless nature of this lopsided season means that Worcestershire will be heading down to Sussex the next morning.

Yet, the thrill of 2018 remains. “It was crazy,” he recalls. “Everyone was just absolutely cooked and tired.

“We stayed in the changing room with friends and family for hours until midnight. Then, everyone just went back to the hotel. Everyone was just so mentally drained. That day, you just go through so many ups and downs and it’s obviously a long day. And then, you win it.

“To be in the dressing room at those times when Ben Cox was batting – I’ll never forget the feelings I went through and I wasn’t even playing, so I can’t imagine what the likes of Browny were going through.

“It was just an amazing day filled with some special moments. I hope we can do it again, so we can go through it again.”

Pennington isn’t even sure whether he’ll be in the playing eleven. Either way, he says, he can’t wait. That, in a nutshell, is this Worcestershire side. All for one and one for all.