Yorkshire batsman Gary Ballance’s Test career got off to the perfect start: he averaged 60.75 with the bat in his first year on the job. He was subsequently named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 2015 and profiled by Tanya Aldred.
Gary Ballance looks across the table with his big brown eyes: “For me, sport is huge. I’m quite shy, I’m not a big one for the spotlight. And being in a team, being involved in everything, you can make friends a lot easier. I like to let my batting do the talking. But nowadays you’re in the public eye, and it’s quite hard to do that, isn’t it?”
It is particularly hard when you make your Test debut at the bitter end of a shambolic tour, and find your feet – good, solid, lighter-than-they-look feet – the following summer. And when you come to fill the troublesome No.3 hole with three hundreds and three fifties. And when that second hundred comes a couple of days after you’ve been pictured in the newspapers with your shirt off, lairy, in a Nottingham nightclub.
He spent two winters back in Zimbabwe playing for Mid West Rhinos, where Gillespie was coach. By now, Ballance was an overseas player there, and there was an expectation he would perform. He grew in stature. Then, in 2013, everything came together. He scored heavily for Yorkshire, and was picked for the Ashes tour, where he would spend most of his time in the nets, yet managed – and he was almost alone in this – to come home unscathed.
Last year couldn’t have gone much better. An England debut in front of a full house at the SCG, two Test hundreds at Lord’s – the first, against Sri Lanka, in front of his parents – 156 at Southampton, a series win against India, and a Test average of 60. Yorkshire even won the Championship. In November he was named the ICC’s Emerging Cricketer of the Year, and in December belatedly called up for England’s World Cup squad.
In time, bowlers will try to pick apart that idiosyncratic back-foot technique, which led some experts to diagnose an lbw problem. But Gillespie is convinced Ballance will succeed. “Gary won’t get too ahead of himself when things go well, and won’t be too down on himself when they don’t. People gravitate towards him – he’s that sort of character. And he absolutely loves his cricket.”
Home is now ten minutes from Headingley, with Alex, his girlfriend, a speech and language therapist from Middlesbrough. He knows where to find a good steak in town and, although he still hears the odd muttering from the local crowd, he’s happy. “I love Leeds, I really do,” he says, his accent a broth of Headingley, Harrow and Harare, with Harare bubbling to the top – for now.
