HE’S BEN STOKES
All-rounder Chilly could have been top cricket star
ENGLAND star Ben Chilwell might be one of the hottest properties in football, but he could have been lost to the game for good.
Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham are all expected to head a £50m chase for the Leicester defender’s signature this summer.
But sports-mad ‘Chilly’ could have ended up carving out a career as a professional cricketer.
As a teenager, he showed such promise with the bat that he was taken on as an academy player with Northants. And the 23-year-old, who has 11 England caps, admits cricket came more naturally to him.
Chilwell said: “Maybe I could have done better at cricket. I had a lot more natural talent – I didn’t have to work as hard. I was a batsman but I could bowl as well.
“I got into the Northants academy and went to Loughborough University for three days for an ECB young talents event.
“Nothing came of it because I wanted to play top football.
“I went up there twice a week for three weeks. I was playing in men’s cricket when I was 15 but didn’t enjoy it anywhere near as much as football.”
Chilwell’s sporting prowess is hardly surprising given that his father Wayne is a Kiwi who had another sport in mind for his boy.
He added: “Dad wanted me to play rugby! It’s in his blood being a New Zealander. I played it for a bit but didn’t enjoy my body getting battered.”
Chilwell isn’t your average footballer. While he was actively involved in anything involving a ball, he managed to find time to cram in his academic studies at school.
He said: “I passed all my GCSES – nine. I could have probably done better if I’d pushed myself a bit more.
“Passing them all was the main thing but I could have got better results, but I was 1516 and wanted to play football and that was all I wanted to do.”
Chilwell admitted he found making his debut for Leicester more nerveracking than when he got the call from England boss Gareth Southgate.
When he won his first senior cap in a friendly against Switzerland at Leicester’s King Power stadium in 2018, he became the first player to make his senior debut at his home ground since Paul Scholes at Old Trafford in 1997. He said: “I still get nervous before games.
I put a lot of pressure on myself to play well, especially for your country because it’s such a big thing.
“I get nervous for every game ever since I was 10 years old. Strangely, making my England debut wasn’t such a nerve-racking experience.
“The transition with England was a lot easier than I thought it would be because I knew the manager from before when he had me with the Under21s. So I knew him and a lot of the players. I’m friends with a lot of them.
“So that wasn’t too hard. In fact, it felt a lot easier than making my Leicester debut.
“Obviously, I was still nervous but not so much as you might think. I felt at home and like I belonged there.”
Chilwell’s bid to break through at the King Power was hardly made easier with Leicester on their way to their shock title win. “Making my debut for Leicester was a bit surreal because when you come through the Under-18s and 23s, every single person feels they have to prove themselves to the dressing room and that was my biggest challenge.
“I just wanted to play as well as I could to just prove to everyone I could perform. They’d seen me in training but training is different and that brings nerves with it.”