In many ways, Dillon Pennington’s summer was over before it began. He burst into the England conversation by taking 21 wickets in the first five County Championship games of the season for Nottinghamshire - his new home as of this year - and was named in their squad for the first two Test matches of the summer.

Following James Anderson’s retirement, Rob Key made clear his plans for a ‘brave new world’ of English fast bowling. Pennington fit the profile. His mid-80s pace and steepling bounce generated from his six foot four frame put him in the Gus Atkinson camp of pacers England were looking to cultivate over the summer. But, just a month later, thanks to a hamstring injury he picked up during The Hundred, his breakthrough season was over.

“It feels quite a long time ago now,” Pennington says of his time with the England squad. “It’s kind of surreal looking back on the summer and thinking what’s happened, the move [to Notts] and then getting into it [the Test squad]. But it was an amazing experience - the guys I got to meet and the first game being at Lord’s and Jimmy Anderson’s last game. Looking back on it, it’s just amazing that I was a part of that and I got to share that experience with the dressing room, and got to meet the guys that ultimately I’ve watched for the last few years.”

Despite not getting the nod for any of the Tests against the West Indies, Pennington spent almost a month with the England squad, establishing himself in the group and working under Anderson, who made his Test debut when Pennington was four years old.

“He was really cool in that last Test,” says Pennington of Anderson. “He helped everyone out and just wanted to be there with the team. He was really mellow and relaxed around training days. They throw names into a hat on the golf course, so I played golf with him which was mad really. I thought he would keep himself to himself but no, that was really cool. It shows the sort of environment they’re trying to create, that everyone’s just one big group”

Pennington’s ascendency to the Test squad came having taken the well-trammelled path from Worcestershire to Nottinghamshire, with Josh Tongue, who made his England debut in 2023, also switching from the Pears to the Outlaws in the off-season. Having plateaued after taking 44 wickets at 22.63 in Division Two in 2022, the immediate success Pennington found after moving further North came as a surprise even to him.

“When I moved to the club, I didn’t expect it to go like this, I must be honest,” says Pennington. “I expected a bit of a backwards step and then to sort of go up [to England] in a few years, but I didn’t expect it to all go up in such a short amount of time. I think it’s important not to look too far ahead of myself. I think it’s shown when I got injured, that can happen at any time.”

He speaks highly of Kevin Shine, Notts’ fast-bowling coach.

“He is fantastic. I think we clicked pretty quickly together. He’s amazingly personable and an incredible bowling coach and goes into good depth. But he keeps it simple for me and knows the learning stuff I’ve got going on and he can put it across in a really good way. We had a really big block of five months last winter together, then we had the season when it is really hard to do your technical stuff. So as much as it was painful to get injured and miss out on whatever happened, I've been able to have a few weeks with him now and get back, hopefully, to that technical place where I was. Hopefully that will put me in good stead when I go to South Africa.”

Having been seemingly the next cab off the rank below the likes of Atkinson, Woakes and Wood, Pennington’s hamstring injury came at an untimely point for his place in the pecking order. England selected Josh Hull for the final Test of the summer, with Olly Stone also making a comeback after three years on the sidelines. In Pakistan, Brydon Carse was the pick of England’s seamers, with Matthew Potts also finding success on a difficult Multan surface.

Next month, Pennington will train with England Lions in South Africa alongside several other up and coming fast bowlers: John Turner, Tom Lawes, Mitch Stanley, and Harry Moore, as well as Hull. After working with Anderson over the summer, Pennington will now have the opportunity to work under Andrew Flintoff - with whom he briefly crossed paths while at Northern Superchargers this summer.

“He’s an amazing character,” Pennington says of Flintoff. “I absolutely loved the few days I was working there [Northern Superchargers]. He fills you with confidence and he genuinely means really well. He’s very personable and I’m really excited to be spending quite a lot of time with him hopefully because I think he’s going to coach really in depth. I think he’s an amazing man-manager and he’ll be great in that head coach role. I think he’ll bring the best out of me.

“I suppose, when you finish and you look back and you’re like, ‘Wow, that actually happened,’ and it’s all a bit of a blur at the time - exactly like it was in the summer. You just float through it like it’s normal life, but it’s not. I’m sure that’s what it will be like this winter.”

Pennington is also set to learn from Dale Steyn, who took 439 Test wickets in his career as one of the game’s greatest fast bowlers.

“I’m sure he [Steyn] is a really nice guy and I’ll float through it and learn loads off him, and then I’ll get back and I’ll realise who I’ve just been coached by and spent a lot of time with,” Pennington says. “He was actually in one of my first Championship games but I didn’t actually get to face him because Wayne Parnell wouldn’t let me at his end. He said there was no chance I was surviving any deliveries. So I was down the non-striker’s end but I got to watch some pretty amazing stuff. It’ll be really cool to learn off him though, and hopefully I can take it into next summer.”

After their tour of New Zealand before the New Year, England won’t play a Test match until May, when they will face Zimbabwe at Lord’s. That Test will likely be used as an opportunity for England to blood new and less experienced faces ahead of five Test matches against India, with an eye to the Ashes down under, which looms ever closer.

“It’s so far away,” Pennington says of the possibility to break into England’s Ashes plans. “I don’t want it to be in my thinking. It’s an amazing thing that it’s getting spoken about, but there are some unbelievable bowlers. You just have to hope that you get that opportunity at some stage to show your skills.”

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