Ben McKinney: The 6ft 7in former Sunderland footballer turned England cricketer

Telegraph

5 days ago

There are a lot of dangers opening the batting, not least a clonk on the head from a fast bowler, but Ben McKinney suffered one of the more bizarre injuries this season.
McKinney, the Durham opener fancied by England and playing for the Lions against India this week, missed a championship match against Hampshire earlier this month after injuring himself pressing a button in a lift.
'I had a heavy bag on my shoulder and bent down to press the button. My back went into spasm and that was it,' he says.
McKinney was on a roll at that point, and since missing the Hampshire match has recorded two ducks, although one of them, against Somerset last weekend, did come with an upside. 'I was already out so was able to watch the play-off final [on the TV in the dressing room]. One of the only occasions I've been glad to be out.' McKinney is a lifelong Sunderland fan, and was on their books until the age of 16, so his happiness at seeing their win over Sheffield United is understandable.
Now it is time to think about cricket and England. Zak Crawley's century against Zimbabwe has cemented his place but 20 year-old McKinney, a 6ft 7in left-hander with a touch of Matthew Hayden about him, is likely the next candidate.
'I think about it every day,' he says of playing Test cricket. 'Right from when I was a kid. It's the dream, it's the end goal for me.'
McKinney has gone from strength to strength in a short period of time. He stroked an action-packed 110 off 100 balls for the England Lions in a first-class match against Australia A in January and showed another side to his game against Warwickshire last month with a patient 186-ball century to anchor the Durham innings on a tricky pitch. Those two ducks have brought his average down to 31 this season, but opening the batting in county cricket, when seven championship matches are played on pitches in April and May, is a risky existence.
McKinney is the latest graduate of the Durham talent pipeline: state-school educated and brought up in Durham club cricket playing for Seaham Harbour. The family lived 'about five minutes' from the Seaham ground, McKinney says. His father Neil was a decent club cricketer and fired his son's early ambitions. 'I think my dad still loves cricket more than me. I couldn't even tell you how many hours he put into me as a kid. I was down in the nets for four or five hours at least. Yeah, I can't thank him enough.'
With his height, he has the build to be a Brydon Carse-type fast bowler, but McKinney has always been a batsman and feels he has really learnt to put his own stamp on his game over the past year, partly by accepting that at his height he is not going to look like a classically trained batsman such as Joe Root.
'First of all I really want to just be a well-rounded batsman. Sometimes you can feel a million dollars and climb around the front foot banging people through the covers, but I think the best part of batting is doing whatever the scenario needs. The innings against Warwickshire, for example, probably the slowest I've batted but against a very good seam attack on a slow wicket, sometimes you can't score with a strike rate of 100 or 80.
'When I was in the second team I always wanted to look like a proper batsman and by that, I mean, like a nice technique. For some reason I had in my head that I wanted to look perfect, and I just don't think you can with how tall I am. As soon as I put that out of my head, learnt my own game, and did things how I wanted to to do them, it really just simplified things. You can then set realistic goals for yourself because there's nothing worse than coming off the field and thinking that is not how Joe Root would have got out.'
McKinney is a talented sportsman. He was in the Sunderland academy until the age of 16, playing as a central midfielder. While his team-mates are yet to make it at Sunderland, several of his regular opponents in age-group teams are now in the Premier League. He played against Manchester City's Rico Lewis, who is the same age, and Lewis Hall, who joined Newcastle last year for £28 million.
'I was, to be fair to myself, a decent footballer, but it's obviously really hard to break through. I'm not saying it's not hard to crack cricket, but the chances and the amount of people that play football make it tough. And, you know, there's people that loved it [football] more than me as well. Cricket was always the number one for me.'
The Lions tour was a breakthrough for McKinney. Powerful on the front foot and off side, he really caught the eye of the England management, particularly Lions coach Andrew Flintoff, whose influence in the set-up is massive. With his attitude and positivity, McKinney fits the bill and we know this England set up is not averse to picking a player at his age.
'Freddie spoke to me about self confidence and presence. I used to actually be quite a small presence at the crease in terms of posture and body language. The big thing I got from him was, actually, yeah, I'm at the crease now, and no one's gonna get me out and I'm gonna try and bully the bowler. It's not a disrespectful thing to anyone. It's just that self confidence. It does help. I'm quite the opposite person off the field.'