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When Graham Onions’ mum embarrassed him in front of James Anderson

by Wisden Staff 2 minute read

As Test debuts go, few come better than Graham Onions’ in 2009.

Against the West Indies at Lord’s, Onions took 5-38 in his first innings with the ball in Test cricket to help England lay the platform for an eventual 10-wicket win.

The 11th anniversary of Onions’ debut passed recently and speaking about his memories of that game on the Two Hacks, One Pro podcast, Onions recounted the story of how his mother embarrassed him in front of his new teammate James Anderson after the end of a day’s play during that Test.

“It was a special moment and it was nice to reminisce. I’ll probably reminisce a lot more when I’ve finished my career and look back at what I’ve done. It was nice, to be honest, to just to kind of put my England cap back on, my family FaceTimed and reminisced a little bit. One of the funny things that came out…basically, what happened was…we came out the Grace Gates and my mum had been drinking champagne all day.

“Me and Jimmy (Anderson) were just walking along and my mum came legging it across and gave Jimmy a massive kiss and [said], ‘I’ve always wanted to meet you’ and that’s not Jimmy’s thing at all to be honest and he turned around and said, ‘Who on earth is that?’ and I said, ‘I’m sorry Jimmy, that’s my mum’ and then he said ‘I’m only joking, I knew it was your mum.’

“That was a funny moment. We had a drink and toasted what was a great week in my career.”

You can listen to and subscribe to the Two Hacks, One Pro podcast here. You can follow them on Twitter here.

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