In the summer of 2006, a Trinidadian teenager who whacked the ball miles and bowled wheels rocked up at Haxey CC of the Lincolnshire League. Jo Harman speaks to Kieron Pollard and two of his former club teammates about a short stint which has had an enduring impact.
To read an exclusive interview with Kieron Pollard about his trailblazing career – as well as a T20 World Cup preview and a review of the English county season – buy issue 49 of Wisden Cricket Monthly.
“There was a six he hit at our home ground… nobody has ever got close to that distance,” says Oliver Tonks, first XI captain of Haxey CC, recalling the breathtaking power of a 19-year-old Kieron Pollard during his spell with the club in 2006. “At long-on, cow corner there are some tennis courts and I can’t really remember the ball ever ending up in there. He almost cleared them! It hit the fence at the far side. Absolutely massive.”
That was one of 15 boundaries struck that day by Pollard, the Trinidadian unbeaten on 83 by the time Haxey reached their target of 103 against a Holton-le-Clay side who’d opened the bowling with Zimbabwe international seamer Tinashe Panyangara. The following weekend Pollard took the new ball against Grimsby Town and returned figures of 20-7-58-5, steaming in and bowling fast.
But the teenager’s most eye-catching performance came in a Sunday fixture at Alkborough, when he bludgeoned 81* from 27 balls, tucked his bat under his arm and strolled off the field, deciding it was time for someone else to have a go. “There was a field behind the bowler’s arm and he just kept trying to hit it further and further back,” says Tonks. “Even at that age it was something that looked remarkably easy for him.”
Pollard had arrived at Haxey in mid-May, staying on after a West Indies under-19s tour and looking to develop his game in English club cricket as so many of the Caribbean greats had done before him. A wet early-summer restricted him to just five appearances before he was called back to play for Trinidad & Tobago in the inaugural Stanford 20/20, but his brief spell in North Lincolnshire had a lasting impact.
“You always hear it when you do your research on West Indian cricketers who have gone to England to play county cricket, and how it has helped their game on the international scene,” Pollard tells Wisden. “That was in my mind growing up, and I had the opportunity to play in a small league in Doncaster after a West Indies under-19s tour.
“You leave the shelter of your home and you go out there in the real world to be a cricketer. It is something that I cherish close to my heart, playing there and learning to become the ultimate professional. I got a small experience of that in England, and then when I played T20 cricket across the world I had to be the overseas professional. I think that helped mould me.”
After arriving at Haxey, a village 30 minutes’ drive from Doncaster, Pollard was initially given his own apartment, but he soon moved in with a family who had a close connection with the club.
“It became apparent after the first week that he was a bit cut off from everyone,” says Tom Scott, who was 16 at the time and playing alongside Pollard in Haxey’s first XI. “He was a young lad in a new country so our family stepped in and said he could come and live with us, just so that he was with people and had someone to communicate with.
“It was great to have him there. It was like having one of your mates or an older brother live with you. Although he was from halfway around the world, from a different background, coming to a little rural farming village in Lincolnshire, he fitted in easily. He had the same interests as my brother and me. We played cricket together, not only at Haxey but at home in the back garden. We’d do that pretty much every day. I played a bit of basketball with him as well, which was quite tricky given he was about a foot taller than us.”
Pollard’s on-field exploits made a big impression on his teammates, with several rushing to buy the railway sleeper of a bat that he wielded. “It was a Pakistani brand called Ihsan,” says Tonks. “He left one and then players around the club suddenly ordered the same bat. To be fair, you probably need to be six-foot plus and have a bit more ability than our lads to hit it as far as he did.”
Less than a year after his time at Haxey, Pollard was playing international cricket for West Indies, having made a splash in the Stanford 20/20 and then scored a century on first-class debut. In October 2009 he played what Tim Wigmore and Freddie Wilde described in Cricket 2.0 as “an innings that would transform not only his life but T20 cricket” – a blitz of 54* from 18 balls, including 27 in the space of six deliveries, in a Champions League match against New South Wales in Hyderabad. Three months after that, Pollard became the joint most expensive player at the IPL auction, fetching $750k from Mumbai Indians. A T20 icon had arrived.
Tom Scott has kept in touch with Pollard over the years and remembers him and his wife Jenna paying a visit to the family home when he returned to the UK. “All our family certainly have fond memories,” he says. “And he obviously appreciated what we did for him.”
Even though Pollard was with Haxey for no more than a couple of months, the ripple effect of that experience is still being felt today. Inspired by his time in Lincolnshire, in 2012 he set up the Kieron Pollard Scholarship, an initiative – now supported by Insignia Sports International and Woodstock – which provides emerging cricketers from Trinidad a “transformative journey” in English club cricket. Two former recipients of the scholarship, Joshua Da Silva and Akeal Hosein, have gone on to represent West Indies.
“These are guys I’ve seen growing up in Trinidad,” says Pollard. “Nothing satisfies me more than seeing these guys come through and prosper, so I hope they have long, successful careers and that the youngsters still to come take the opportunity to stamp their name on the international stage.”
