"Learn to succeed – there are times when things don’t work out how you want them to, but by learning from success and failure, it can make you and your team stronger.” This is the coaching philosophy of Chris Edwards, England Learning Disability captain and the Cheshire Cricket Board’s disability lead coach.

“It started in school,” Edwards tells WCM of his introduction to cricket. He was diagnosed with autism as a three-year-old, and attended a school which was more suited to his needs than an average primary school.

“I was five or six years old at the time and we were playing football, but it got too hot. The school caretaker and head of lunchtime activities, Keith Beggs, got a cricket set out and we played a bit of cricket. He identified I had a natural talent and it all took off from there.”

Seeing the innate ability Edwards had for cricket inspired Beggs to take his coaching qualifications, allowing Edwards and his classmates to play cricket more regularly. Beggs taught him how to bat and bowl and subsequently became a close friend of Edwards and his family, even travelling on England tours with him to Australia in 2009 and South Africa in 2011.

Twenty-six years on from that hot day in the school playground, Edwards has enjoyed quite the career. He debuted for England in 2009, aged just 16, became captain of the national side at 22, and was awarded a British Empire Medal in the Queen’s birthday honours in 2021 for his services to learning disability cricket. He’s been in the England set-up for over 15 years and is still going strong.

Edwards’ international career highlights include successes against Australia, featuring three Ashes wins Down Under and a tri-series victory over the Aussies and South Africa last November. England defeated Australia in the final at the Wanderers, a game that he describes as “probably the best day of my England career to date”.

While autism is something that impacts his life on a daily basis, he says, for the most part, it doesn’t impede him too much on the cricket field.

“My main disability is social and communication difficulties, particularly when going into new or unknown environments. From an impact point of view, it can be [affected] if my routine is out of sync. So, say, wet weather or something happens in the game that hasn’t gone to plan. It can affect people differently. But in terms of actually playing cricket, nothing much is different.”

As well as captaining England, Edwards represents the Cheshire disability side, and was part of the team that won four successive championships between 2007 and 2010. He also opens the batting for Neston in the Cheshire County League, an ECB Premier League, and so far this season has a top score of 61 not out against Toft.

Edwards is a recognisable figure in Cheshire cricket circles, particularly due to the work he does as a coach for the Cheshire Cricket Board, including at the county’s six Super 1s hubs – an initiative set up by the Lord’s Taverners that gives young people with a disability aged between 12 and 25 the chance to play regular, competitive cricket.

“I’m the disability lead coach,” he says. “I also look after the disability county squads. So we have a D40 hardball squad and a hardball development squad. And then we have two Super 9s sides who use an incrediball.

“It’s quite a wide range of disabilities. In the Super 1s you’ve got all four impaired groups [physical, behavioural, developmental, and sensory] involved with the squad. It’s pan-disability.”

As well as overseeing the disability squads, Edwards’ role with Cheshire Cricket Board involves lots of community work, including coaching in schools and outreach activities. He also organises friendlies for the disability squads to take on local cricket clubs as a way of “challenging our players to aspire to be stronger and better and improve their cricket”.

Edwards is incredibly proud of what he’s achieved in the game, both as a coach and England cricketer. Ahead of England’s tri-series in South Africa last November he told the BBC: “It’s given me an identity. When I started, it was a massive taboo if someone had a learning disability – people weren’t educated about it. Now there’s an openness, with more people coming forward, more youngsters wanting to play our game.

“This is who I am. Putting on this shirt is not an easy thing to achieve. You have to earn the right to wear it, and when you do, you have to understand what it means, and what the ethos of this squad means. For me, it’s massive.”