Nepo babies on rise in Championship as 2005 anniversary approaches

I was once like you are now, and I know that it’s not easy, to be calm when you find yourself … taking 11 wickets against Surrey in the County Championship at just 18 years of age.

Find your feet, settle down, score 88 in the Metro Bank Trophy. You’re just 16, that’s not your fault, this thing’s got a long, long way to go.

(*Key change*) Oh, how can I try to explain, what it’s like to be a 2005 Ashes hero? Look at me, I’m old but I’m, well, I’m actually the incoming England Men’s Lions head coach. Him? Oh, he’s an outspoken newspaper columnist and summariser on Test Match Special with a baffling penchant for a hashtag.

What’s that? Yes, we both captained England on the field. Do we still … yes we still hold plenty of influence now off it. Does this make you a cricketing nepo baby? Probably. But what’s new?

Fathers and sons. Sons and daughters. Uncles and nieces, brothers, sisters, cousins, grandparents. Perhaps more than most other sports, cricket is a game that relies on being taught and learned, passed on and handed down. An appreciation of bat and ball is often bequeathed through bloodlines, meaning that talent and aptitude for the game itself is too. Cast your eye over the family tree of English cricket in particular and you’ll see familiar surnames cropping up from its roots and across its boughs.

There they are – your Graces, Greigs and Gunns, your Comptons, Cowdreys and Currans, your Huttons, Hearnes, Haddelseys and Hollioakes. Over here the Butchers and Stewarts, over there the Alis, Sidebottoms and Willeys. Oh look – here come the Flintoffs and Vaughans.

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The last few days of the English domestic season have seen the “Vitalitymen” of Surrey claim a third County Championship title, Somerset’s windmilling arms kept at bay by a signet ring topped palm on the forehead. The south London side’s dominance and the West Country’s perennial bridesmaid act were once again the main narratives on the field just as the usual existential crises and plentiful proposed solutions swirled off it.

Yet, in and among all this, as befits the times we live in, a nostalgic subplot has all the while been taking place. Behold the progeny of 2005.

Maybe you saw a clip on social media first, way back in April. That pull shot? Hit replay on that. The slight head bob into the ball at the last moment before connection. Do you see? And there – that nonchalant swing of the arms and long-legged amble down the pitch afterwards, all the while looking to see how far the ball has flown over the boundary. Go on, hit replay on that.

That’s Rocky Flintoff. Son of Andrew. Aged only 16, “Freddie’s lad”, as he will be inevitably known for the foreseeable, has impressed repeatedly this season. In April he scored 116 for Lancashire second XI against Warwickshire seconds at Edgbaston. It was only his third game. He scored a 50 against Durham at Old Trafford the week before.

In making the ton, Rocky broke his dad’s 30-year-old record as the youngest century-maker for Lancashire’s second XI. A few weeks later he became England Under-19s’ youngest ever centurion by scoring a remarkably assured 106 against Sri Lanka at Cheltenham. The obvious talent and the famous name conducive to excitable whispers, feelgood sidebars in newspapers, magazines and websites and “seen this?” messages on WhatsApp groups.

At the end of July, aged only 16 years and 113 days old, Flintoff became the youngest player to make a first-team debut for Lancashire in their 160-year history. A swaggering 88 against Middlesex in the One-Day Cup followed a few matches later. (He was caught on the boundary by Middlesex’s Josh de Caires, son of some bloke called Michael Atherton.) Twenty-four days after his first-team debut Flintoff made his first-class debut for Lancashire, against Surrey at the Oval, and impressed by scoring 32 in an hour and 20 minutes of resistance against Surrey’s much vaunted bowling attack.

Eighteen-year-old Archie Vaughan had impressed against Surrey’s celebrated batting card only a week earlier. Son of Michael (“Vaughanie’s lad …”), Archie is an elegant and angular opening batter just like his dad, and like his old man, he is capable of turning his arm over. Archie’s off-breaks snaring 11 Surrey wickets at Taunton as Somerset kept their title chances alive with a thrilling 111-run victory to set up a crucial penultimate fixture against, you guessed it, Lancashire.

Flintoff Jr and Vaughan Jr came up against each other in the penultimate Championship round of the season last week. Flintoff’s Lancashire ran out winners to extinguish Somerset’s title hopes but young Vaughan impressed most in the battle of the 2005 bairns, scoring a mature 68 at the top of the order in the second innings.

What to make of all this? It would take a pretty cold heart not to be swept up. Both youngsters are clearly extremely talented and have undoubtedly worked hard to get where they are in the game. On the flip side, there’ll be some who inevitably point to the influence of their fathers and the gilded opportunities afforded to them – private schooling, a name and a ready-made network within the game.

Maybe they would say this piece should have been dedicated to 16-year-old James Minto at Durham, the state school kid from a village north of Stockton-on-Tees with no cricketing bloodline to speak of who has just become the youngest player to represent Durham in first-class cricket and the second-youngest bowler since the second world war to take a first-class wicket. Why not dedicate some verbose paragraphs to the 87mph bouncer that Minto clanged into Rory Burns’ helmet at the Oval last week and the puppyish relish he clearly had for the whole contest?

Both opinions can be true. Sport is nothing without its stories and cricket is no different. There’s room in the game for both the bolters and bequeathed. This year’s domestic season has allowed both to flourish.

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