Why all-rounder Danny swapped Rovers for cricket as part of sporting family

Yahoo

18-07-2025

Danny Lamb is an all-rounder in more ways than one.
The Sussex batter and seam bowler was eyeing a career as a goalkeeper with Blackburn Rovers as a teenager.
He will quite happily grab a Vitality Blast quarter-final spot with both hands if the opportunity arises.
Sussex Sharks host Surrey at a packed Hove this evening (6.30pm) with the significance of the final South Group fixture increased by a win at Gloucestershire yesterday.
Lamb held his nerve to hit 16 runs off five balls and carry Sharks to a dramatic last-ball four-wicket win.
Chasing a victory target of 186, Sharks required 15 runs off the final over, bowled by David Payne. Lamb clubbed three boundaries, including one off the final ball, to stun a large Festival audience into silence and end Gloucestershire's defence of the title they lifted last year.
Both Danny and his sister Emma have had a big cricketing week, the latter playing for England.
So they are a good symbol of how men's and women's games are coming together in the Blast this season.
But, while they shared a love of sport, they were not exactly bowling at each other in the back garden all day as kids.
Danny said: 'We did a lot together but not as much as what people think. I wanted to be a footballer!
'I always enjoyed my cricket but I was at Blackburn Rovers until I was 16.
'I wanted to be a goalkeeper. I wasn't quite tall enough - or good enough, to be honest.
'The decision was made for me, really, but I think it has worked out well.
'I don't know what level I would have got to.
'We always played different sports. I'd say we are both pretty good all-rounders in that respect, pardon the cricketing pun.
'I played a lot of tennis growing up. A lot of badminton, netball.
'I wouldn't say it was all on cricket from the start.
'It just sort of went that way.
'But I was always on the academy pathway at Lancashire so I always maintained a good level with that.'
Whatever the permutations of the South Group, Sussex would love to sign off with a Hove win.
Their two previous Friday games at the 1st Central County Ground have both been big disappointments at a unique venue which should offer home advantage.
Lamb said: 'It feels quite intimate. The crowd is really on top of you and that should be a home advantage – and it is.
'When they are up and about, it really gets the lads firing.'