This is Leicestershire - part 2

* In the first part of an interview with former Leicestershire CCC all-rounder David Millns for the ‘This is Leicestershire’ series, the Foxes legend talks to Communications and Cricket Logistics Manager Dan Nice about his move to Grace Road and the first few seasons during his time at the club.

Leicestershire CCC Head Coach Paul Nixon says that he still gets a special feeling whenever driving through the gates at the Fischer County Ground.

Nixon’s former teammate David Millns also came to adopt Grace Road as his home. A strong fast bowler who came from a mining background in north Nottinghamshire, Millns played a key part in the club’s revival in the 1990s, a period in which they twice won the County Championship.

My memories of Millns are still vivid. As a youngster sitting on the Maurice Burrows Balcony or Butler Stand, I can recall Millns charging in from the Bennett End, often with a sweatband on his left arm to wipe the perspiration off his forehead. Wickets seemed a formality.

He also made many useful runs as an underrated left-handed batsman; partnerships with fellow southpaw Nixon and the lower middle order salvaged many an innings.

Nowadays Millns comes back to the ground in his role as an ECB umpire, and he gave us a fascinating insight during his recent visit for the Specsavers County Championship game against Durham CCC.

Millns has a twinkle in the eye when recalling the time he first navigated the backstreets of the LE2 area.

“I do remember it,” he said. “It was 1985 when I first drove into the ground, I was playing for Notts Second team and Leicestershire had a team that featured Jon Agnew, Les Taylor, Ken Higgs, Phil DeFreitas and Lloyd Tennant among others – not a bad bowling attack was it?

“I’d never been here before but I took wickets in that match [four for 62 in the first innings] and enjoyed being here. That was a very long time ago – it’s actually 33 years now thinking about it – but they are all good memories.

“I was pretty much told that I wasn’t going to play for Notts First team and I felt it wasn’t a level playing field. I’d taken wickets against Worcestershire in 1988 - we were about the only team to beat them as they won the Championship - and I was then left out. I just felt that I wasn’t holding my shirt, even when I was doing well.

“So in terms of the move, Leicestershire were already getting a first-class bowler and I managed to break into the side midway through 1990. From a seam bowling point of view, it was actually a tougher side to get into at Notts.

“You only had to look at the side I first played against to see the strength. In 1990 Leicestershire had a bowling attack of Jon Agnew, Winston Benjamin, Alan Mullally and Chris Lewis, with Pete Willey as the spinner. On top of that we had George Ferris, Gordon Parsons, Les Taylor, myself and Lloyd Tennant in the Second team with Martyn Gidley as the spinner.”

It was in the following season that Millns started to make the headlines as he made charging down the hill at Grace Road a regular and fearsome sight for visiting batsmen.

He took nine for 37 in one particular match against Derbyshire CCC, figures that remain the county’s best against the opposition, but it was tapered by the fact that the club finished 16^th of 17 teams. Even to finish in that position, as Millns acknowledged, took some achieving in the final round of fixtures.

Then things started to come together in 1992. In a particular match against eventual champions Essex CCC in July – a county that Millns had a terrific record against with both bat and ball – the quick took match figures of eight for 90 and could sense that good times were around the corner for the Foxes.

It was a memorable summer for Millns, who was the top English bowler in the first-class averages with 69 wickets at 18.89 apiece. An England call-up would surely have arrived had he not picked up a foot injury during that fine victory.

“Things started to change, but I remember in 1991 we had to beat Kent to avoid the wooden spoon when it was 17 teams in the Championship and we did that in the very last round down at Canterbury,” said Millns.

“I can remember Nigel [Briers] saying that if I got five-for in that game then he’d cap me, and he was true to his word as I managed to get five wickets in the first innings.

“I was then the top Englishman in the bowling averages in 1992 but it was very much a team in transition. Jon [Agnew], Pete [Willey] and Les [Taylor] were in the process of retiring, Nigel Briers had taken over as captain, David Gower had left, Chris Lewis went around that time too.

“You could sense that things would improve though. There were youngsters breaking through like Ben Smith, and we had Benji [Winston Benjamin] and Alan Mullally, so we had a real chance as we had such a good bowling attack.

“I managed to break my foot at the beginning of August otherwise we’d have run Essex a lot closer. We hammered them down here and that’s when I got injured sadly. We ended up slipping down the table [the team finished eighth] as we fell away at the backend because of injuries.

“Had we kept that team we may have actually won the Championship earlier than 1996 as you could see we had the makings of a great side. We were a good bowling side and batsmen were starting to take shape.”

Millns clearly felt that the seeds had been sewn for the glory years of the late 90s that included title wins in 1996 and 1998 and only one defeat as part of a tenth-placed finish during the rain-hit year of 1997.

The 53-year-old has fond memories over those years, a period in which Leicestershire CCC were pretty much unbeatable in the longest form of the game – particularly at Grace Road. Nixon, to this day, has bad memories of the Championship fixture late in the 1999 season that ended a four-year unbeaten home record.

Millns said that opportunity knocked for Leicestershire CCC during that period but the game has changed nowadays, particularly given the movement of players.

“Things were very much possible and we came second in 1994,” he said. “In those days we didn’t have the system we have now. Nowadays if you do well, then players get whipped away. We’ve seen it again this year and it’s been a theme in recent years.

“We had a very good young side, the likes of Ben [Smith] and Darren [Maddy] came through the ranks as local lads, Nigel [Briers] was a Leicester man, and the rest of the team had been good signings from other counties.

“When I started at Nottinghamshire, the majority of the lads were from Nottingham or surrounding areas. That was the same with Yorkshire and Lancashire too. The net is now casted wider as it’s more of a global game.

“From Leicestershire’s point of view it was sad to see players like Darren Stevens, Nathan Buck, Josh Cobb and Greg Smith leaving the club. They are Leicester lads.

“It’s not a criticism of the club because it’s happening all over the country. Players had started to leave their counties even before the 2018 season had ended. It’s one of those things that you have to accept is happening. It’s a different era now.”

Photo credit: John Mallett.

* In the second part of the interview, David Millns discusses those memorable County Championship winning years and how the success came about at Grace Road.