INTERVIEW: Fully fit Jack hoping he can be the lad for Northants as cricket returns

The pace bowler has been in and around the County Ground scene for close to 18 months now, but has yet to play a first team game.

Initially brought to club in 2019, injuries meant the 27-year-old seamer didn’t even get out on to the field until September, but he then impressed in a couple of second team outings.

That, and White’s reputation earned with the Sydney-based Parramatta District Cricket Club in the 2017/18 season in Australia, where he helped the club to their first New South Wales Premier Cricket title since 1965, persuaded County head coach David Ripley to offer him a one-year deal in the winter.

White put pen to paper and was excited at the prospect of making his mark in the 2020 season, only for the Covid-19 pandemic to throw an almighty spanner in the works as the campaign was put on hold.

Well, four months down the line from that late March shutdown, the Northants cricketers are back in training at the County Ground, gearing up for a five-match first-class tournament and the T20 Blast to be played in August and September

White is fit and raring to go, and is keeping everything crossed he stays that way so he can deliver the goods in County colours.

Looking back on last summer’s injury problems, White said: “It was just one thing after another.

“I had a weird neck injury when I was in Australia, then I got back and blew my side out on my first bowl.

“So I had that side strain, and then just other niggles and it was almost laughable how it went.

“Luckily I managed to pull it together for the last two weeks of the season, and I have felt brilliant this year, so fingers crossed I won’t break down again!”

So, what can the Northants supporters expect from the Kendal-born bowler when they do get to see him in action?

“I try and be boring to be honest, and with the red ball I try to be consistent, as consistent as I can be,” said White. “I am not that quick or anything and I like just grafting away

“When it is flat and not doing much, I like that sort of challenge or keeping it tight and making something happen.

“I think that’s what I was known for over in Australia, as somebody with no great pace or anything but will put a lot of effort in. So, it is all pretty simple.”

White’s stint in Australia proved to be productive in more ways than one for the player, who not only excelled for Parramatta, but his performances also led to him landing on Northants’ radar.

Asked about his spell Down Under, White said: “It was really good, and is one of the reasons I am playing here now.

“It was a really good standard of cricket, and they take it so seriously, it was a bit different to playing Lake District cricket, but I had a great time.

“Speaking to Phil Rowe (Northants’ former bowling coach), the connection came about through my coach at Parramatta. Northants were looking for a bowler and my name cropped up, so I came and played a second team game in the middle of the season, and it just went from there.

"I had never played any second team cricket or anything like that, so I said ‘okay, I’ll play’, and that’s how it happened.”

As far as routes into first-class cricket go, White’s is certainly an unusual one.

When a teenager, White, who grew up in the Lake District, did play a couple of games for Durham, and also had a brief trial at Northants, but he admits ‘I cant even remember what happened!’

He has always played league cricket and been involved in minor counties as well, while he has spent his winters playing in in New Zealand as well as Australia.

For a job he has worked in forestry, worked in a saw mill, and ‘done some gamekeeping’, all things that are par for the course for a young man living in the Lakes, and he said: “I would work and play cricket in the summer, then I would go off and ski in the winter. I love skiing.

“So it is an interesting route into the game I guess, a bit different to going through an academy and signing a deal. It is different but I quite like it.”

White is certainly relishing the life of a professional cricketer, and he added: “I have really enjoyed it, and for me it is something so different.

“Coming in every day and having somebody tell you when to bowl, and to work on your fitness, and it is brilliant.

"It can only improve you, so I am looking forward to being fit and seeing how it goes.”

The Northants players are stepping up their preparations for the start of the season and will play Middlesex in a couple of friendly games next week.

Practise was undertaken in small groups until the end of this week, and now the whole group are working together for the first time since the pre-season trip to Singapore was brought to an early halt in March.

Nobody could have envisaged what was going to happen when the squad flew home from that trip, but it does now seem that sport is beginning to get back into full swing, albeit without crowds in the grounds.

“Being in Singapore, everybody was so ready for the season, and then it has all been suspended four months,” said White.

“It has all been very strange but I am so looking forward to getting started, and it is so good being back and you get so much energy getting into the training because you haven’t had it for so long.

Northants start their season with a Bob Willis Trophy match against Warwickshire at Edgbaston next Saturday, before three home games on the spin, and they then get stuck into the T20 Blast competition at the end of the month.

“I can’t wait to get started, and I am sure all of the lads feel the same way,” said White.

“It is a really good set of lads here, and I get on with everyone. All the boys seems really keen to play, and really want to get back into the action because they have missed it.”