I suspect there are times in every interviewer’s life when they suffer from severe foot in mouth disease. And starting my chat with Hampshire’s highly successful opening batsman, Jimmy Adams, with the question “Player of the year – what happened?” was definitely one of those moments.

But Adams is too nice (or too polite) to take offence, and anyway, he knows I didn’t mean it. Instead, he takes the question as it was actually intended. “I don’t know!” he laughs. “Well, I do know – or at least I hope I do, because I’m following a similar path this year and I’m hoping to have similar results. In the last eighteen months I’ve worked quite well with Chalky and I feel there’s someone there who backs me to do stuff and understands how I work. I went to see [Australian batting coach] Noddy Holder with Chalky’s backing last winter, and he helped me to think more positively.

“The 2009 season started OK, and that makes a big difference. Rather than feeling it’s an uphill struggle you feel more settled in the team, and then you can go from there. Towards the end, even though I’d played more games than I ever had in a season, I was so happy with what I was doing even if I was playing indifferently I could still churn out runs. Of course there are things I would have liked to have done better; like convert more starts to even bigger scores, but comparing it to the year before I shouldn’t complain too much.”

To which comment the only logical reply is ‘too right’. During the 2009 season Jimmy made 1,279 Championship runs at an average of 53 (which included 3 centuries and 9 fifties), scored over 500 one day runs (more than doubling his career tally), and achieved a top score of 68 in Twenty20.

Still the relative lack of centuries rankles. “The seventies and eighties I was disappointed with. They’re the ones that, when you get that far down the line, you should be seeing it so well... it’s definitely something to work on. But then again, if someone offered me last year again next year then I wouldn’t grumble.”

We’d talked about Jimmy batting time in Championship matches, but in the one day games his style had been far more explosive, underlining his versatility at the crease. “It just may be a case of needs must” he replies modestly.  “Last year I definitely felt I was more capable of playing First XI one day cricket and although it took me a while to get into the side, having the belief that I was around the team for the right reasons helped me to be a bit free-er when it came to playing. In the four day stuff it’s a case of batting time to lay down the foundations for the team and I knew that if I was there after two sessions there were always guys who would move us along because we’ve got a lot of very capable free scorers. In one day cricket it was great having that outlet to swing at balls!

“It’s very simple; the difference was that in four day cricket I’ll leave it when it’s in the channel and try to accumulate when it’s straighter. In one day cricket if there’s any width I’ll go for it and hope for the best.”

For everyone involved with Hampshire Cricket last season the highlight of the year was winning the Friends Provident Trophy and Jimmy is no exception. “This will sound very clichéd, but I think back to when I was about eight, and I remember Shaun Udal and Tim Tremlett came to my school when they had just won the Benson & Hedges Cup. Having that situation turned around and actually being there, holding a trophy, is something I thought would elude me. It was just a fantastic day. My initial goals were to enjoy it, not to make any mess ups in the field, and get off the mark! Little things really, but it all went according to plan [Adams top scored for Hampshire with 55], and to have friends and family watching too was amazing. If I could have that day at Lord’s over and over again I’d be a very happy man!

“If you feel you’ve contributed and the team’s done well then that’s the ultimate feeling of warmth, and last year I was able to do that more than I had in previous years. To feel that you’re more of a member of the team, one of the eleven, is fantastic. I spoke a lot to Chalky about how in past seasons – and a microcosm of my career really – I’d had the ups and downs, and about how to make sure the downs are a little bit less, or you pick up out of them quicker.  You’re always going to go out there and nick one early or drop a catch; it’s just making sure you bounce back that much faster and more consistently.

“I did change stuff technically and I worked hard on things, but even so I probably nicked as many balls last year as I did the year before, but they seemed to land safe or go for four. Sometimes that’s the way it goes! I’d like to think I was doing more than scoring all mine through third man last year but I still get my fair share there and that’s par for the course for a left handed opener. But hopefully now I have last year in the memory bank as a confidence booster I can make sure I move on.

“People will have more of an idea about how to play against me next year – especially in one day cricket. They’ll have different plans and Lumby and I won’t be able to get away with it so often! So we’ll have to add another string to our bows before they can peg us back. Next year I’ll need plan B and plan C so I can stay ahead. Four day cricket is slightly different but I’ll just have to keep working to make myself a better player – it’s not going to be running my way all the time, that’s for sure.”

At times last season it seemed as though the opposition had plenty of plans for Michael Lumb but none for Jimmy Adams. The Friends Provident semi final against Lancashire was a case in point. “I have to say it often felt that way – and it was great for me! Lumby has this presence at the crease and oppositions are very wary of him, so I was able to carry on doing my own little thing at the other end. The amount of times when at the start of a fifty over game Lumby would have deep backward out and fine leg up and they’d be happy to give him a single on the leg side, then I’d get down there and it would be a much more orthodox attacking field, which gave me much more of a chance to sneak under the radar and take the pressure off Lumby. But that may well be different now.”

So far this winter Jimmy has been coaching, but early in the New Year it is time to turn his attention to his own game. “I’m going to try to be a bit more selfish and use the coaches’ time for my own ends. I’m going away to see Noddy [Holder] again for two or three weeks in January; Noddy’s methods are different to some people’s but I find I can almost go out there and chat to him for an hour instead of hitting balls and it would be just as useful, simply feeding off his energy and enthusiasm for the game. That was the great thing, it opened up a more positive mental attitude to it all, and that coupled to the fact I was getting somewhere technically, was a huge bonus. The two things together were massively powerful.

“He made me believe that with the game I’ve got I can do what I’ve always hoped I’d do, to help me to realise that potential. But, crikey, it could have also been a complete co-incidence! It could have been that I managed to get a good start and built from there – but I don’t think so. I was able to take a method I was happy with into the season and hold that throughout, then if something wasn’t quite right I had very simple messages to go back to. It seemed to work, so hopefully – fingers crossed – I can do something similar again.”

Jane Cable

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