'Don't Give Up': Michael Finan's Inspirational Story

By Jon Culley

Leicestershire new recruit Michael Finan should stand as an example to any young cricketer never to give up their dreams of a career in the professional game, even if it doesn’t happen straight away.

The 26-year-old left-arm pace bowler, who signed a two-year contract with the Foxes last month, had ambitions to play for Lancashire when he was a boy.

Six years ago, he had high hopes that Northamptonshire might take a liking to him when he was invited for a trial at Wantage Road.

In both cases, the opportunity he had been craving to prove that he was good enough came to nothing, and he admits that to have a door open for him now was hardly something he had foreseen.

“It’s all happened at 100 miles an hour, to be honest,” said Finan, who has been playing National Counties cricket for Cheshire since 2019.

“I’d had quite a decent white ball start in the T20 stuff with Cheshire and I believe it was Harry Dearden (his Cheshire team-mate and a former Leicestershire player) who spoke to Dips Patel here and to Tom Smith at Yorkshire, suggesting they have a look at me.

“I played a couple of Second XI games for Yorkshire and had a couple of sessions down here and I ended up getting offers from both counties.”

Born in Tameside in Greater Manchester, Finan played club cricket for local team Dukinfield, making his debut for their Second XI just a few days after his 13th birthday.

A year later, after impressing for Tameside against Bolton during a district trials match at Emirates Old Trafford, he was turning out for Lancashire Under-14s, taking a wicket on debut, which he hoped would be the first step of a journey that would ultimately end with a place in the First XI.

“I was in the Lancashire age group teams right up to under-19s, but didn’t get anything else out of that,” he said. “They never really said anything but I suppose I wasn’t good enough.

“About a year later I went for trials at Northamptonshire, playing in a couple of T20s and a three-day game against Worcestershire.

“Unfortunately, I then got Gilmore’s Groin, which is a sportsman’s hernia and had to have a groin reconstruction. I was out for about eight months.

“It was my own fault - I didn’t look after my body back then as well as I should have. After that I took the gym work a bit more seriously.”

Nonetheless, as each year passed, the idea of playing for a living seemed an increasingly unlikely prospect. He remained involved in the game - he works for Total Cricket, an equipment retailer and coaching centre not far from his home in Tameside - but it looked like his chance had probably gone.

“I’ve started my coaching badges and I thought maybe there were things that I learned as a coach that I could take into my own game, but I never expected anything like this to happen,” he said.

He chose Leicestershire ahead of Yorkshire partly because he already knew players at Grace Road such as the ex-Lancashire duo Arron Lilley and Callum Parkinson, and partly because it struck him as a family-oriented club.

“My own family is massive for me and while I’m not saying Yorkshire isn’t a family-oriented club, Nico (Paul Nixon) told me that if there was anything they could do to help me, my partner and our little one to settle in, we should just ask, and that was a big thing for me.”

He is also looking forward to tapping into the depth of knowledge held by the likes of team-mate Chris Wright and assistant coach Alfonso Thomas to hone his skill with the ball.

“We’ve already identified a couple of things to work on and I’m looking forward to getting stuck in,” he said. “I’ve never really had any proper coaching, so everything is pretty new to me and I still felt pretty raw going into my debut against Nottinghamshire.

“The first thing is keeping my foot behind the line (he was no-balled for over-stepping 17 times at Trent Bridge) but me and Alfonso have already been working really hard on that.

“I like to think I’m a quick learner, so I hope to be able to improve pretty quickly.”

His first-class bow at Trent Bridge was also notable for a debut half-century with the bat, suggesting he might have something to offer in that area too.

“It was a case of feeling that if I tried to survive against the high-quality bowlers I was up against I wasn’t going to get very far, and they were banging it in short, so I just thought I would take it on,” he said.

“But it was getting a couple of wickets that was the real confidence-builder for me.”

Finan leaves his job with Total Cricket on November 1, which in some ways will be a sad moment for him.

“They have been a massive help,” he said. “If it weren’t for Dave Williams, the centre’s owner, I would never have played for Cheshire in the first place.

“He’s been there through thick and thin for me and pushed me to play. Without him, I probably wouldn’t be here now.”

Keen to make the most of his belated opportunity, he would encourage others not to give up on their dreams, however unlikely it might seem that will ever come to pass.

“Without doubt, I say to other cricketers in my position: ‘don’t give up.’ Keep working hard at your game because anything can happen and it can happen very quickly.”