ENGLISH DOMESTIC SEASON, 2018

Nick Gubbins and the fickle finger of fate

by Vithushan Ehantharajah • Last updated on

"Relegation isn't the end of the world. We can do something special," Gubbins says about Middlesex's prospects in the upcoming domestic season. © Getty

"It's better to have loved than to have not loved at all," says a wistful Nick Gubbins, as he secures a baseball cap on back-to-front, making him somehow look more boyish. At 24, he is old enough to have loved, yet young enough to not have been dragged down by the soul-sapping delirium that comes with each encounter.

In his professional life at least, what moments of euphoria he has experienced have been preceded by trauma: a Championship with Middlesex in 2016 followed by relegation in 2017; a feast of 1,409 first class runs to lead the title tilt followed by a famine of 381 for the drop; talk of an England call at the start of last August followed by a hamstring injury two weeks later; a winter of technical awakenings seeing him rattle off centuries in each of the first two matches of the North-South series only to duff another hamstring (this time, the right) in the third.

The rough with the smooth, not having a rainbow without the rain -- perhaps it is an attitude that best serves those who look to make a living out of facing a fresh red Dukes ball in England. Gubbins, a classical left-handed opener, has it in spades. Like many cricketers in the present era, he keeps a notebook but admits to focusing more on the details of the lows. "You know," he explains to Cricbuzz, "writing down the dark times just helps you appreciate the good ones."

The latest entry might well be of the most recent injury that will see him miss the start of the summer but certainly not much more beyond the end of April. The disarray of England Test side twists the first few rounds of the season into a Battle Royale: a fight to the death for anyone qualified for higher honours. A couple of scores -- heck, maybe even just the one provided it's in front of the right people -- and you're in with a shout. That opportunity will be lost to Gubbins. Luckily, he has a winter's worth of credit in the bank that few others can match.

When last season was restricted to just eight Championship matches, there was enough in the tank to give the England Lions a fair crack. It was on the Australia leg of the programme -- one which coincided dramatically with the Ashes tour, resulting in a four-month midnight curfew -- that Gubbins had his technical epiphany.

"At first, it was just about clarity with my plan against the white ball," he explains. "I had a few T20 knocks against the Perth Scorchers (scoring 31, 68 and 34) and felt like something had clicked. I've always had a slightly different trigger for red and white ball cricket. For red, it's always been about being more still and playing a ball on merit.

"But I developed a trigger to the white ball -- of going back and then into the ball -- so I can use my feet to change a bowler's length. It's a technique I found this winter that has helped massively with different options. Potentially, it'll make the transition from red to white ball easier."

A torrid time in the Caribbean followed at the turn of the year. Shoddy facilities, shoddier umpires and the shoddiest approach to spin saw the Lions turned inside out by Jomel Warrican and Rahkeem Cornwall. A 3-0 whitewash in the unofficial Tests was followed by a 2-1 defeat in the mock ODIs. Typically, there wasn't much to take from a tour but lessons to be learned.

"It was rough, especially when you go on Twitter and see yourself getting nailed. We can't really moan. They played some smart cricket in their conditions and we were probably naive and inexperienced. Seriously, the umpires, geez, some of their decisions ... just completely turned the momentum.

"The one thing that struck me was how different first class cricket is in the Caribbean. We arrived for the 'Tests' looking to take on West Indies: bat long, slow them down, get them playing at our pace. But, in all three of those matches, they just took the game away from us. Like, if you think about how it's played in England, you think you can bat for an hour and recuperate when you've lost a few. But over here, you can't just stay here and bat because you allow them to bowl more in the right areas and invite pressure on yourself."

"You know, writing down the dark times just helps you appreciate the good ones," Gubbins tells Cricbuzz. ©Getty

With little time to work on kinks within both series, replicating the relentless nature of modern international tours, there was a lot of learning to play spin on the job, mostly as individuals. Gubbins found himself weighing up the risk and reward of attack -- "do you go aggressive and whack it? But then you run up and miss one and you look weak, you know?" -- before settling on just that. "That's one slight regret. We didn't really put their spinners under pressure. We'll only be better players for what's happened."

As it happens, it was between series that he was given the biggest indication that patchy form aside, he was on the right path. Spotting a bit of time off to work with individual players, Andy Flower, technical director of elite coaching and holder of significant sway (still) at the ECB, collared Gubbins for a spin masterclass, as he had done many a time with Kevin Pietersen when the two were on professional terms.

The session lasted for an hour: a rigorous yet carefree 60-minutes in which Flower implored Gubbins to strip away context and open up his wrists, yet lambasted him for every lash straight to an imaginary fielder. The aim was to remove any rigidity and play with the turn. The younger of the two southpaws was ordered to get out of his head and adopt this simple method: whack the off-spinner through the off side and whack the leg-spinner through the leg side. A "letting go net", as Gubbins put it.

"It was intense," he remembers, with the mental satisfaction and sliver of regret of someone who's just completed their first marathon. "He was really hard on me. He got me back to basics: back to the roots of playing the game in the back garden reacting against a mate throwing a tennis ball off some stones."

At the end of the session, once Gubbins stripped off his gloves and pads, Flower picked them up, still soaking in sweat, and began practicing what he had just preached against the net spinners. "When he played a bad shot, I walked down to him and told him exactly what he told me," says Gubbins with a wry smile. "He's still got it, to be fair. But he did chip a few to cover. He wasted a few Test innings in there."

The fruits of his and Flower's labour came in March, during the North-South series held in Barbados, with a third and then fourth career List A hundred in the first two matches. When he went down in the field trying to stop a boundary during the winner-takes-all encounter, so did the South's hopes of a second successive series win. Unable to bat, right hamstring strapped in white and crutches by his side, he watched on as the North triumphed by 92 runs to take the series 2-1.

Nevertheless, when he does take the field for Middlesex this summer, he will do so with a better understanding of his game and standing within English cricket. Questions remain over Mark Stoneman and the same ones are starting to be asked of Alastair Cook, too. A campaign to rival Gubbins's four-century title-winning turn two summers ago feels in the offing. But before he starts thinking of writing new chapters in his book, he appreciates the darkness of "a really tough" 2017 will be the main driver for him and a Middlesex team gunning for promotion.

There was a degree of bitterness to the demise of the then defending champions: a crossbow bolt leaving them with docked points at the Oval, a Taunton turner sending them spluttering in the dust as Somerset survived in their stead.

The complaints have not carried over into the new year, but the spirit that runs through their core certainly has.

"It was a comedown for us all. But the nucleus that we've built at Middlesex, we've got good blokes throughout the club. When shit hits the fan, we can get around each other. Look at what happened to Nottinghamshire last year," he says, pointing to a side that used Division Two to not just bounce straight back up, but also pick up both the Royal London Cup and T20 Blast.

"Relegation isn't the end of the world. We can do something special."

© Cricbuzz

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