Alex Davies
The highs and lows in his attempt to regain fitness
Alex Davies is talking about batting for Lancashire, something he loves to do. Suddenly a quiet smile breaks across a face which more usually wears the expressions of resolve and satisfaction characteristic of the dedicated professional sportsman.
“I know what your next question’s going to be,” he says and prepares himself for an enquiry regarding the extent to which the signing of Keaton Jennings from Durham presents a threat to his position at the top of Lancashire’s batting order.
“I’d prefer to stay on as an opener but Keaton and I will do whatever’s best for the team,” he says. “I like to think I’m quite versatile but there’s going to be a bit of a scrap on for who wants to bat where and I’ll always back myself 100 per cent.”
Davies refuses to view the recruitment of Jennings as any sort of threat to his batting position just as he refused to see the signing of Jos Buttler three years ago as putting pressure on his role as Lancashire’s wicketkeeper.
“When Lancashire signed Jos I never saw that as a threat,” he said. “I saw it as an opportunity to learn from Jos and I have done that. Keaton’s been somewhere I’d like to be so I’m going to tap into his knowledge and ask him what it was like playing spin in India, what it was like playing the South African seamers.”
Davies is an appealingly straightforward cricketer and it requires no effort whatever to believe him. Nevertheless, the difference between 2014 and this quiet autumn lunchtime at Emirates Old Trafford is that a year ago he was recovering from a serious operation to cure a knee problem which could have ended his career.
He now knows what a real threat looks like. He has experienced one first-hand and faced it down.
A year on from that operation Davies, 23, has become the first Lancashire keeper to score a 1,000 first-class runs in a season and he has received his county cap. In a few days’ time he flies out to Australia with the England Lions. He can now look back on his operation and the long recovery programme which followed and understand how much he learned from it.
“People talk about injuries being a negative thing, and it sounds weird, but I am really glad the injury happened when it did, if that makes any sense at all,” he said. “I feel like I underachieved a little bit in the years before I had the lay-off. I wasn’t quite as focused or producing the volume of runs I wanted.
“Having that injury and missing a full year really does re-focus you and remind you what it is that you want.You have to sit on the sidelines for a year watching your mates playing, and you don’t get to.
“I always believed I would come back and play – and play well. But there was at the back of my mind before I went in for the operation thoughts about whether I was going to play again. That was a tricky time, but once you wake up and they say the operation was a success, that triggers something in you.
“It re-tunes you mentally, to make sure you do all the right things to ensure it doesn’t happen again. At first it was tough because I am young and just want to play cricket. Once that emotion dies down a bit, you start thinking logically about what you need to do.”
Davies was not alone as he took the first steps on the long road back to fitness. Lancashire’s top-notch medical team were with him all the way, advising, reassuring, encouraging. Helping him to deal with the mental side of recuperation. He will always be grateful.
“It’s talked about round the country that we have the best medical staff and they helped me both mentally and physically,” he said. “Physically, you just do what you are told – you do the swimming, you do the weights, you do the rehab.
“But the mental side was around 70 per
This injury has reined me in a bit, I’ve realised there is more to life than cricket - this time last year I was just starting to walk again
cent of the battle and the staff keep you going in that respect, too. They tell you that if you keep working, you will be back playing again, you will be able to go on Lions tours. Without them I wouldn’t be getting this opportunity.”
But representative cricket is only the latest in a menu of good things that have been laid upon Davies’ table in the last 12 months.
Along the way he has had to accept medical advice that it was too early for him to field in T20 cricket. But he has also had the chance to open Lancashire’s batting and play the innings which helped last spring’s relegation favourites to finish as runners-up to Essex in Division One.
“I got a feeling I’d be batting up the order, so I worked hard in the winter tailoring my game, put some shots away, brought in some new shots, worked on the swinging ball, worked against the new ball and just tried to prepare myself as best I could for opening,” he says. “That certainly put me in good stead for the season.”
That season included Davies’s 92-ball 97 against Hampshire which seemed a joyous 102-minute justification of all the hard work he had put in.Yet at the same time there is now a recognition that cricket has to be placed on a broader canvas if it is to be fully understood.
“I used to just bat, bat, bat, keep, keep, keep and just keep going,” said Davies. “This injury has reined me in a bit, I know I can’t just keep on going and going. That has freed me up to just enjoy my cricket.
“I’ve realised it’s not the end of the world, there is more to life than cricket. This time last year I was just starting to walk again after the operation.”