By Paul Eddison
Sam Hain’s List A average of over 60 is not just world class, it’s historic. The 22-year-old Warwickshire batsman averages 60.21 in the format after a successful cameo with the England Lions with his numbers now among the best in the history of the game.
While Hain has only played 26 List A matches, he is on course to do something that has never been done before.
Of those with 50 or more List A innings under their belts, Pakistani opener Shan Masood has the best record with an average of 58.08.
The next two in the list give a greater appreciation of where Hain’s numbers rank. They are Michael Bevan, the original finisher, and Virat Kohli, on his way to becoming the greatest white-ball cricketer to have ever played the game.
To put Hain in that bracket is obviously premature, but there is no question that against the white ball, he is one of the top prospects in the English game.
And yet the one-time County Championship prodigy has seen his numbers slump in the longer form.
In Hain’s first season of first-class cricket he racked up four centuries and averaged over 50, but every season since 2014 has seen his average drop.
This winter Hain knew it was time to stop the rot and after some intense work on his alignment, the right-hander is confident he can transfer his form against the white ball into the longer format – with Bears sport director Ashley Giles having backed him to make it to Test level within a year.
Hain explained: “There are two words to describe the red-ball issues. My balance and my alignment. In basic layman terms, when I get anxious I fall over my stumps and I’m playing at balls I should be leaving.
“It’s simple enough to talk about but to actually fix it when I’ve been doing it for so long has proven to be something that is a little bit tougher than I thought.
“I’ve been doing as much as I can to try to improve it and reduce it. I feel like it’s been coming along but you want to see results when you’ve put in so much work. Hopefully we’ll be able to see that when the red-ball season starts.
“It was something I knew but I sort of put my head in the sand and said ‘I’ll get away with it, I’m a good enough player, I’ll score runs’. But it’s been a year and a half now. I’m still going to score runs but I had to ask, ‘What can I do to allow myself to score runs on a consistent basis?’ And this is what we pinpointed.
“I got dropped from the four-day side and I couldn’t see myself getting back in because we’ve got a lot of competition for places, which is healthy and it’s good. I said to myself, ‘I need to fix something technical here’.
“It wasn’t until the back-end of last year that I said that to Ash and we figured out a plan to get it right. I’m sat here now wishing that rather than sticking my head in the sand a year and a half ago, I’d looked at it then.”
Whatever work Hain has been doing on his red-ball batting, it clearly has not affected his ability to bat in limited overs cricket.
Barely a week after being called up as an injury replacement for Dan Lawrence, he produced the best knock of the entire England Lions tour when he smashed 144 in a heart-breaking loss to West Indies A.
That the Lions fell five runs short has taken some of the shine off for Hain, but, considering he spent the next two days in bed with the flu, it was still a remarkable innings.
He continued in that vein in the final game of the series, scoring an unbeaten half-century in a seven-wicket success – the only Lions win across three unofficial Tests and as many one-dayers.
But having only been called in at the last minute, Hain was keen to seize his chance, and he did not disappoint, even if his memory of the first knock is a little hazy. “I got the call from (selector) James Whitaker saying they would like me to come out to join the Lions for the one-day series,” said Hain, who went away to the Bangladesh Premier League before Christmas but did not play a game.
“There had been a virus going around a couple of the lads and I was one of the unlucky ones. I wasn’t in the greatest of shape but I wasn’t going to let an opportunity like that go begging. I wanted to play no matter what.
“I’d been waiting for an opportunity and so a man flu wasn’t going to stop me playing. It’s all a big blur now looking back at it. The couple of days after, I didn’t really leave bed. It was nice to score runs on a personal level but the fact we lost takes some of the gloss off it.”
Next on the agenda for Hain is the North-South Series, where he and Warwickshire teammate Adam Hose will be looking to fire the North to victory in Barbados.
The duo will then be tasked with helping Warwickshire return to Division One in the County Championship after a difficult 2017.
And following a number of arrivals since Giles returned to Edgbaston and Jim Troughton took on coaching duties, including Hose, Hain believes the team is ready to challenge on all three fronts – as is he.
“I want to be playing all three formats for Warwickshire, I want to be a consistent performer for Warwickshire,” added Hain, who signed a new contract through until 2021.
“I’ve said to Ash and I’ve said to Troughts, I want to be playing all three, most definitely.
“We’ve got some bloody good cricketers at Warwickshire and we’ve got a lot of talent coming through. You only need to look at our top order in the t20 where our top four or five were all under 25 so there’s a great stable of talent and I’m thrilled to be a part of it.”
If Hain can transfer his white-ball numbers into the red-ball game, Warwickshire will be just as thrilled.
