Lancashire v Sussex, C&G Final, Lord's

Adams salutes Kirtley character

Cricinfo staff

August 27, 2006

James Kirtley: 'You have your doubts and your dark moments' © Getty Images

Kirtley spent the winter remodeling his action after being reported to the ECB last season and for the first part of this summer was struggling to adapt. However, he put all his problems behind him with a destructive spell of seam and swing bowling on Saturday.

Talking about a possible England recall for Kirtley, Adams said: "It's down to James and whether Duncan Fletcher believes in him. If Duncan thinks James can put on an England shirt against then he will deliver for him.

"People like James do not come along often, I've met thousands of people who would have fallen away into insignificance if they went through what he has. He's decided he would come back and fight hard."

Adams added: "He's very modest - what he won't tell you is about the six hard, long, dark and dreary months he was arriving at the ground at 8.30am and going into the indoor school every day and working on his action for two hours at a time. The action is fine, what James is fighting against is if he believes he can do it. That's character."

Kirtley, who has chalked up four Tests and 11 one-day internationals, last played for England in an ODI against West Indies, in Guyana, in April 2004. His last Test was in Colombo in December 2003 after he'd begun his career with a match-winning 6 for 34, against South Africa, at Trent Bridge.

Kirtley is now comfortable with his new action and hoping to build on his match-winning effort at Lord's as Sussex aim to add the Championship trophy to their cabinet.

"You have your doubts and your dark moments," he said. "I can't be fighting demons in my head, it's a hard enough game bowling against anybody but if you have distractions it's trickier.

"I had no other option, I had to do it. All these people helping me as part of it but I want to deliver and perform for Sussex. I've talked about the action for four or five years now - the action is the action, it's there and it's sorted - I just want to perform. I've shown I can perform, I just want to play cricket."

Sussex and Lancashire - level on 189 points - both have three Championship matches left and the next round starts on Wednesday.

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Chris Adams

James Kirtley

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Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy

England Domestic Season

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England

Sussex