For a moment, Ben McKinney belies his cherubic looks, sounding like a gnarled old pro as he declares: ‘I really want a thousand runs.’
The giant England Lions batsman is contemplating goals for a county season beginning on Friday, adding an immediate return to Division One of the Championship for Durham as his second.
‘Because as a young player it’s good to show you can score runs for a longer period of time. James Coles and Rehan Ahmed did it with four and five hundreds last year,’ he says.
‘So, that’s a selfish thing for me, but I also want to get Durham up because we are far too good a team to be in Division Two.’
The 21-year-old’s referencing of the season benchmark used by generations of first-class batsmen comes at an intriguing time for the game, with the England hierarchy vowing to reconnect to the domestic game when it comes to picking players.
Ironically, McKinney has been a beneficiary of Bazball’s boldness to this point in his career, having been discussed for an international debut as far back as a year ago following a hundred for the Lions in Australia.
Ben McKinney is targeting 1,000 runs and helping Durham win promotion back to Division One
The 21-year-old was touted for an international debut as far back as a year ago following a hundred for the Lions in Australia
‘There was a little bit of chat last year before the Test against Zimbabwe, and that might have been at the forefront of my mind,’ he tells Daily Mail Sport.
‘Whereas a lot of the older guys I talk to will say that if you look after the present, the numbers don’t lie. That’s what I will try to do this year.’
Glamorgan’s Așa Tribe has positioned himself as next cab off the rank when it comes to Test openers, should Zak Crawley finally be put out of his misery for June’s series versus New Zealand, but the 6ft 7in McKinney offers a viable alternative if he is able to persuade Rob Key, England’s director of cricket, a tendency to get starts, only to hit one up in the air, is behind him.
‘I don’t look at the stats often, but I’ve got four first-class hundreds and only two 50s. I get to 30 or 40 quite a lot, and it’s a massive thing, not only for the team, but for myself, to really start showing the numbers that I want,’ he says.
‘It’s about being a bit more dialled in, because as an opening batter getting to 60 on a spicy wicket might win you the game.
‘I haven’t been through my dismissals, but I can tell you now I’ve given my wicket away quite a fair few times and it comes with pros and cons as a young player.
‘It’s a pro that I’m not getting out to skill all the time, but valuing my wicket is something I want to improve on. You’ve got to be greedy, and I think I can be greedier, that bit more selfish. The main thing for me is you have got to graft hard to score your runs in county cricket.’
McKinney’s maturing process included being dropped by Durham for three mid-season Championship fixtures last summer, which might have led to someone without such strong ties to the region seriously contemplating their future – he is now in the final year of his contract.
McKinney admits he needs to value his wicket more having given it away ‘a fair few times’
McKinney turned to England captain Ben Stokes, pictured, for advice on the pull shot last month
But a player who learned his cricket at Durham League club Seaham Harbour while an academy footballer with his beloved Sunderland reflects that he ‘probably needed that reflection time’.
He adds: ‘As a young player at Durham, you get opportunities, but you can’t make the same mistakes, and expect to be given the same opportunities.
‘I’ve got to prove that I am not one dimensional. I was in the England Under 19s, the first year that Brendon McCullum came in and I got myself in a one-dimensional space, thinking you have to be attacking all the time when you don’t.
‘That’s a learning curve for me. I used to love watching Ben Stokes. Think about the Ashes in 2019. The gears he had at Headingley when he had two off 50 balls overnight and ended up with 135 not out to win the game the following day showed he is a complete batsman. Managing any situation, that’s what the game is about to me.’
It was also Stokes to whom McKinney turned for advice on the pull shot in Abu Dhabi last month, at the end of a Lions winter programme that featured a pair of 60s against England in the pre-Ashes match at Lilac Hill.
‘I just know he pulls really well. We were just talking about the science behind it, really,’ he explains.
‘We talked about how you can get caught up in trying to hit balls for six, whereas if you just whack it, flat, some go for six, some don’t. He’s really good at simplifying things and just got me to start thinking about the contact.’
Both men had their initial potential identified by John Windows, Durham’s long-serving academy director who stepped down recently due to ill health – Windows encouraging McKinney to follow his passion for cricket over football when Covid hit six years ago.
‘I was a No 10, but I got a little bit too tall, so went to centre midfield and then grew a bit more and became a defensive midfielder. My next move would have been centre back,’ McKinney laughs, recalling his time at the Academy of Light.
‘Everyone says I could be a millionaire now, but it’s not how it works, is it? It’s a lot harder than that.’
And so it is a four-figure sum rather than one of seven that currently occupies the thoughts of one of the country’s brightest batting talents.
