Yorkshire’s teenaged fast bowler is returning from injury to lead England Under-19s in India, and launch what he hopes will be a breakthrough year
ESPNcricinfo staff18-Jan-2017Matt Fisher is regularly hailed as England’s most promising young fast bowler but, as he prepares to lead England Under-19s in India – where that attention could become all the greater – he is perfectly equipped to ignore any excessive praise. Fisher is virtually deaf in his left ear, a disability of which he makes light as he seeks to reignite a career which has already brought high expectations.”Gold dust” was the assessment of Fisher this week from one coach at the national performance centre in Loughborough. His Yorkshire colleague, Tim Bresnan, not a man for overstatement, has predicted an illustrious England career. As the urgency grows to identify convincing successors to the likes of James Anderson and Stuart Broad, Fisher’s India returns will be eagerly studied.England and Yorkshire are protective when it comes to talk of Fisher’s hearing impediment but, for the player himself, it has long become just a part of everyday life, as it should. His development has been most interrupted, not by his handicap, but by vulnerable hamstrings – and he knows which concerns him the most.England Under-19s squad
M Fisher (Yorkshire, captain for one-day series), M Holden (Middlesex, captain for four-day matches), H Brook (Yorkshire), G Bartlett (Somerset), E Woods (Surrey), W Jacks (Surrey), D Rawlins (Sussex), O Pope (Surrey, wk), T Banton (Somerset, wk), L Patterson-White (Nottinghamshire), L Shaw (Somerset), A Beard (Essex),J Blatherwick (Nottinghamshire), H Brookes (Warwickshire), J Bruce (Middlesex).
One-day series v India Under-19s 30 January (Wankhede Stadium), 1 February (CCI), 3 February (CCI), 6 February (Wankhede Stadium), 8 February (Wankhede Stadium)
Four-day matches v India Under-19s (venue to be confirmed): 13-16 February, 21-24 February.
“I’m more worried about the hamstrings by a mile,” he said.Hamstring ailments have slowed his progress at Yorkshire and England have sensibly taken a protective approach. His rich potential was apparent from the moment he became England’s youngest post-war county cricketer, at the age of 15 years and 212 days, when making his debut against Leicestershire in 2013, but less than three years later, he found himself growing a little too quickly for his own good.The future looked just as bountiful when he was a member of the England U-19 side that beat India in the 2014 World Cup quarter-final in Dubai. Since then, Ben Duckett has gone on to full England honours and Joe Clarke has won batting plaudits with England Lions. Haseeb Hameed, who has just embarked upon a Test career, was also around the scene at the time, although not at that tournament. Fisher knows that he has a bit of catching up to do in what, his 19th birthday now passed, will be his Under-19 swansong.Fisher has had two operations – the latter primarily a check-up – for a cholesteatoma, which is an uncommon and abnormal growth inside the ear. The condition brings with it a risk of hearing loss and vertigo. England could one day have cause to be immensely grateful that Fisher’s balance remained unaffected.Dressing room ribaldry has helped him deal with his hearing issues. He was virtually an ever-present in Yorkshire’s NatWest Blast side in 2015, and laughs at the repartee led by the likes of his former coach, Jason Gillespie.”All the lads give me so much stick at Yorkshire,” he said. “Anything I don’t want to respond to, they say ‘Oh you’re on his deaf side, Fisher can’t hear you’. I can hear most of it. It’s selective hearing. I hear what I want to.”I’ve always had problems with my ears. It’s not going to get any worse. I maybe struggled with my hearing at school but it has never been a problem. I’m allowed a hearing aid but I don’t use one.”Three tears in his left hamstring were much harder to bear. The lay-offs became longer: three weeks, six weeks, eight weeks. His mother was happy, he smiles, because it forced him to concentrate on his A-Level revision – maths, psychology and PE – but when he pitched up for the T20 Blast at Headingley, his mood could darken.”I’d had a decent T20 the year before. I got 16 wickets that summer, playing in front of a full house at Old Trafford, experiencing the passion of the Roses clash, alongside overseas players like Aaron Finch and Glenn Maxwell. There was all the razzmatazz.Matthew Fisher has made his mark at Yorkshire, in between his injuries•Getty Images”This year I missed all that. I went to watch a couple of games but found myself leaving halfway through. I just wanted to be out there. It’s so tough when you have had a taste of it.”To get knocked down a bit like that was tough. You get a lot of hype, which gives you that extra buzz. Then, when it’s taken away from you it can be a really tough time, especially as I had made such quick progression as a young lad. My mum and brothers could tell I just wasn’t myself.”When you keep achieving, you just want to move on to the next goal and it kind of set me back a bit. It makes you question whether or not you’ve still got it. It may sound stupid. But you start thinking whether you are fit enough, whether you’re in good enough shape to perform as you did before.”Gillespie left Yorkshire at the end of last summer, but a parting gift for Fisher came with a 10-week stay at Adelaide CC, Gillespie’s old club. Lots of Australian sunshine, two training sessions a week, a bit of gym work and a weekend match was just what he needed to get back into the swing.”I just needed to trust my body again,” he said. “Touch wood, there has been nothing untoward. In one match, I went through 20 overs in one day in 30 degree heat. After that day I was pretty relieved. Hopefully I’m over it.”The call from David Graveney, England’s national performance manager, inviting him to skipper the England Under-19s in the one-day matches in India – Middlesex’s Matt Holden takes charge in the four-day matches – was just the fillip he needed.It will be his first time bowling in South Asia and, for examples of England quicks floundering on Indian surfaces, he does not have to ponder for too long. But he feels he is on the road back and Bresnan – a young county debutant himself, at 16 – and his Yorkshire coach, Andrew Gale, have already quietly suggested to him that 2017 could be his breakthrough year.”I feel really focused,” he said. “I had a really good pre-season last year and maybe I was in contention. With my injury I have learned that sometimes you have to be patient, but I think I have the pace and the skill to be up there. I still feel that people know what I can do.”
