Meet Manny Lumsden, England’s 88mph ‘enforcer’ at U19 World Cup

Lumsden is a whippy right-arm bowler who can reach speeds of about 88mph and is one of the most exciting prospects in the England pathway system. At 5ft 11in, he is not tall compared with some of his team-mates (seamer Alex Green is 6ft 6in) but he says he has “a couple more inches to grow”.

Now doing his A-levels at Radley College in Oxfordshire, he first went to Lord Wandsworth College in Hampshire, where his father, Audley, is a physics and sports teacher. Having grown up on the school’s grounds, he credits being able to use the facilities with helping his development.

“I was the only child, so it would have to be mates or my dad or my mum throwing me balls,” Lumsden recalls. “I’m lucky enough to have grown up on a school, so I spent a lot of time on the grounds playing cricket with my dad or whoever wanted to play.”

Lumsden joined Hook Cricket Club at four years old, starting a journey which led to him entering the Hampshire regional and academy systems by the age of 11 and making his first-team debut last year in the One-Day Cup at 16.

Cricket is deeply woven into his family history. “My dad loves the game and my mum loves cricket as well,” he says. “She grew up around cricket. My grandfather on her side played as well, club cricket for the military. So it’s sort of in the blood.” He may bat at No10 for England Under-19 but by the age of 13 he was already making headlines at Hook, striking an unbeaten 115 to rescue his side after they had collapsed to 46 for five — a knock that highlighted his calm temperament.

The source of Lumsden’s explosive athleticism is no mystery, though. Audley was a Bath wing and full back, scoring 64 tries during the club’s golden era in the late 1980s, and was once considered the fastest man in English rugby. While Manny played rugby at school, choosing to specialise in cricket was never a tough decision for him.

“I played rugby from a similar age to cricket, but I gave up a couple of years ago now, just for the cricket, which has always been my love, really,” he said. “Rugby’s a bit cold and a bit muddy — and it hurts.”

At this World Cup, Lumsden has been deployed as England’s “enforcer”, a job he has taken on with relish. “That enforcer role, trying to make things happen, gives you that little bit of licence to be really aggressive with your bowling. Running in hard and trying to find a way to take a wicket. That’s quite a natural role for me. I’ve always been someone that wants to take lots of wickets. And maybe my bowling has been a bit wayward at times before this World Cup, but it’s something that naturally I’m quite good at and I do really enjoy: just trying to make things happen and taking wickets.”

His performance in Bulawayo in the Super Sixes displayed an ability to adapt to conditions that is rare in one so young. On a surface he describes as “very slow”, Lumsden realised that his raw pace alone would not suffice.

“That first spell, you really had to run in hard,” he said. “It’s just knowing when to switch through the gears a bit. That second and third spell was just more about concentrating on hitting the spot, hitting that sort of top-of-the-stumps length with the variable bounce. It was all about keeping the stumps in play. You don’t need to necessarily bowl 100 per cent as fast as you can. I do think it’s always important that I am bowling fast, because that’s one of my points of difference, but I changed my length differently for those two spells. It’s just trying to hit the stumps and keep it really simple.”

England have the advantage in the semi-final of having played their past two matches at the same venue in Bulawayo, while Australia have spent much of their campaign in Namibia, playing on faster, truer surfaces. “It’s definitely useful that we know the conditions and have been in Zimbabwe the whole time,” Lumsden said. “We’ll use that advantage, definitely.”

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