Harry's Game

Ben Bloom 20/03/19

Harry Gurney on becoming a T20 specialist: 'It's inevitable T20 will swallow the rest - it's the future'

Wednesday’s announcement that Harry Gurney has retired from red-ball cricket is actually only half the story - in effect, he is now just the second active English cricketer to call themselves a T20 specialist.

A scheduling clash with the Indian Premier League means Gurney is highly unlikely to play a 50-over match for his county Nottinghamshire again, which means like Tymal Mills - whose body restricts him to the shortest form of the game - he will now operate solely in T20 cricket globally.

It is a decision Gurney knows will prompt criticism. Unlike some other cricketing nations, Test cricket still scraps hard to remain top of the sport’s hierarchy in England and for many there remains something taboo about the short-form game.

So for a bowler like Gurney, who topped Nottinghamshire’s County Championship wicket-takers last year, to turn his back on anything longer than four-over stints is a significant move. But if his decision might upset cricket’s purists, his predictions for the future of the sport will likely cause even more distress.

“It's inevitable that T20 cricket is going to swallow up the rest,” Gurney, 32, told Telegraph Sport ahead of his debut stint in the Indian Premier League, which starts this weekend. “I stood in the middle of the ground in Karachi [during last week’s Pakistan Super League final], looked around and the place was packed to the rafters with completely fanatical supporters.

“There are cricketers out there earning £20-30,000 for a three-hour T20 and that dwarfs the match fees for a Test match, which takes five days. It's pure numbers for me.

“I've always had the approach of a businessman to my career - to make a decision that a lot of cricketers wouldn't have the balls to make.

“I get slated for this, but ultimately professional sport is a business and people vote with their feet. Look at the crowds on a Friday night at Trent Bridge for a T20 compared to a Monday morning County Championship game.

“The misconception when I say these opinions is that I hate red-ball cricket, but that isn't true. I grew up completely obsessed with it. I remember getting up at 4am to watch England play on the sub-continent in the winter and absolutely loved it.

“But I'm a realist and I think that's the way it's going. It's moving that way a lot faster than people realise.”

As recently as last summer, there was little to suggest economics graduate Gurney would become such a trailblazer. For much of his 12-year playing career, the gangly left-arm seamer had proven the archetypal county professional with more than 100 first-class matches under his belt and a bowling average touching 30.

There was even a brief flirtation with an England shirt for 10 ODIs and two T20Is in 2014, before he was swiftly sent back to the domestic ranks.


All the while, it was in the shortest format that he truly excelled and - after his Nottinghamshire captain Dan Christian had publicly proclaimed him “the best death bowler in the world” - Gurney decided to see where his talent could take him. Quite far, it seems, with the winter spent almost entirely in five-star hotels while playing in the Sharjah-based T10 League, Australia’s Big Bash, the PSL and now IPL. This relentlessly transient lifestyle will now become his permanent professional life.

Even now he admits the satisfaction of a four-day county triumph is difficult to replicate in short-form cricket, but other factors have just proven too strong. With a 15-month-old son to think about, the financial benefits are high on the list and he envisages other county cricketers following his lead.

“I'm going to earn at least double this year what I earned last year and with a young family that's important to me at this stage of my career,” says Gurney, who will be paid £83,000 during his eight-week stint in India.

“Domestic players have to pay their counties quite significant compensation to be able to go to the IPL, whereas as a T20 specialist if you don't miss any domestic cricket then you don't have to pay that compensation.

“I've taken a big pay cut at Notts, but I've actually saved myself a load of compensation so the net cut is nowhere near as significant as one might think. That is a potential problem going forward for the PCA, ECB and counties to look at.”

The sport’s evolution, he argues, is something everyone involved must learn to accept.

“Test cricket is still the pinnacle of the game and the majority of T20 franchise players would agree, but I think in five or 10 years' time that won't be the case any more,” he says.

“Ten, 11, 12-year-olds now are being introduced to cricket via T20 and that's what they want to play. Kids in India don't want to block it all day, they want to slog it out the park. It's a generational thing.

“Timeless Tests came to an end and one-day cricket came along, then T20 came along. Things just move on.”

Is that not sad? “Very. Well... yes and no. Yes, because I love, and so many people love, the longer format. No, because I'm very pragmatic - it's the future and I embrace evolution. I embrace change.”