Atlantic, Cessford is aiming to stay up to speed
“I always wanted to play cricket so I’d be here in the English summer and then head to Australia to play every winter,” he tells The Cricket Paper. “Then I got injured in Oz, came home and realised I’d have to get a proper job. My cousin was in the RAF and he told me I could join and still spend all my time playing cricket.
“He was right! I even played in the Falklands when time allowed. It was bizarre, there were times when we would have to clear the penguins off the pitch before play. We would play against the Falkland Islands side, which was literally anyone who was available and wasn’t farming on that day.”
The sight of Cessford running in in the South Atlantic outpost probably wasn’t what most unsuspecting Falkland Islanders had in mind when they agreed to play. And it was certainly a world away from the one he occupied for those two seasons at Worcester.
He has no regrets after fulfilling his childhood dream, saying:“At the end of the 2013 season I had an ankle op and couldn’t really bowl as quick as I’d have liked but I gave it my best shot and, hand on heart, I loved doing it.
“In some ways it was similar to being in the services.You were in a bubble and once you were in there it was brilliant. It’s probably the best little place in the world. I was used to routine and order, which came a little bit harder to some. Put it this way, I was always a lot tidier than my house mate, Shants (Jack Shantry).”
Shantry recently tweeted a picture of some personalised flip-flops sent to him and his Worcestershire team-mates by their former colleague, and Cessford is hoping that the business continues to take off.
“I came up with the idea in the Falklands, but we only had 100 minutes of internet a week,” he says.“It took two minutes to load each page so I probably spent six months doing one night’s work.”
His cricket career was a similarly lengthy journey. But one worth the wait.