Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2012 | Page 62

INTERVIEW

Danny has 'em
in a real spin!
By Peter White
Island cricketer Danny Briggs
has been spiraling his way
to even more success this
summer as he continues to
establish himself as one of the
game’s finest exponents of spin
bowling.
Danny, who was born in
Newport, is still only 21, yet is
now recognised as a key figure
at Hampshire Cricket Club,
where he was first spotted as a
raw but enthusiastic youngster.
Having already gained
England honours in the one-day
form of the game, Danny is
being strongly tipped to be an
integral part of the international
cricket scene for at least the
next decade, and probably
beyond.
He was back on the Island
earlier in the summer, hoping to
be in the Hampshire side that
was due to play here for the first
time in 50 years. Alas, the two
T20 matches, scheduled against
the Professional Cricketers’
Association at the Newclose
County Ground, Newport,
were called off because of poor
weather.
But that didn’t dampen the
youngster’s spirits, as Island Life
found when we caught up with
him amid the showers. Danny
said: “Yes, despite quite a lot
of bad weather this summer, I
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am pleased with the way things
have gone again. And I have to
say that the last couple of years
at Hampshire have been real
good fun, and quite successful.”
Danny was born in Newport
and was educated at St Wilfred’s
Primary School and Carisbrooke
High School, and was just
18 when he made his debut
for Hampshire back in 2009.
Since then he has further
developed into a genuinely
fine spin bowler. Only last year
he became the youngest spin
bowler to take 100 wickets in
the first-class game since Derek
Underwood, formerly of Kent
and England, achieved the feat
back in 1963.
Yet he revealed that when he
was a young lad just beginning
cricket he never really thought
about becoming a spin bowler.
Initially he was just bowling
‘seamers’, a faster form of
bowling that entails using the
seam on the ball to try to move
it away or in towards batsmen
after it has hit the pitch.
“Suddenly one day I found
myself getting a bit bored
with trying to bowl fast, so I
just started bowling spin and
enjoyed it,” he smiled. “So
since I was about nine or 10 I
have been a spin bowler. I was
practicing at Ventnor Cricket