High Performance
Jim Allenby on the Unseen Hours That Make a Professional Cricketer
The former Western Australia and county cricketer explains why quiet, repeated practice outlasts talent and self-promotion.
Batting with Hirschy - Jim Allenby - How to be a professional Cricketer.
Video from Batting with Hirschy.
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What does it take to become a professional cricketer?
According to Jim Allenby, it takes years of hard work that nobody sees: disciplined hours of training as a youngster, practice repeated until you stop making mistakes, better fitness than talent alone demands, and coaches willing to put in the time. That unseen preparation is what a player falls back on when a game turns stressful.
Jim Allenby played professional cricket in England and Australia, and when an interviewer who had watched him come through club cricket at Durham City sat him down for Batting with Hirschy, the question was simple: what matters most on the road to becoming a professional cricketer? His answer had little to do with natural talent. It centred on discipline, hard work and long hours.
Allenby grew up in Western Australia and found his opportunity in England after a few years of trialling, having nearly moved to Melbourne to try his luck there. He admits much of his early drive came from wanting to prove people wrong, which he says is not always a healthy reason. Looking back, he sees the preparation behind the scenes as what carried him.
The conversation covers what young players should focus on between fifteen and eighteen, why he regrets skipping fitness work, and how coaches shaped his bowling through sheer volume. The lessons reach beyond cricket. They apply to anyone building a skill that only shows its true value under pressure, when there is no time left to prepare and habit takes over.
Key takeaways
- Unseen hours of training build the reserve a player falls back on when stress and pressure arrive in a game.
- Players who quietly get on with the work tend to have longer and more consistent careers than those who advertise it.
- Practise until you cannot get it wrong, not until you get it right once, and good habits follow.
- Fitness matters alongside core skills, and young players have more time to build it than they realise.
1. The hard work nobody sees
Allenby starts with discipline. He does not think anyone achieves much in professional sport without the initial, really hard work, and much of that work happens where nobody is looking. Hours spent training and preparing as a youngster are not about being noticed or seen. What matters is that the player knows, privately, that the work has actually been done.
That private knowledge has a practical use. When moments of stress or pressure arrive in a game, Allenby says, the hard work is what a player falls back on. Cricket makes this especially true because it is such a long game. The process of getting good at it takes longer than in many other sports, so the reserve built in practice has to last.
He is wary of players who need everyone to know what they have done, posting about every team session, gym visit or run. In his view those people tend to be a little insecure. The players who simply get on with it, because they know the work will make them better, are the ones he has seen enjoy longer and more consistent careers.
2. What he would tell his younger self
Asked what could help a young player between fifteen and eighteen, Allenby is candid. He says he was probably never fit enough as a younger player and used his skills as an excuse, since he was still producing runs and wickets. He describes himself as a bit lazy at times, and believes that perception probably held him back in Western Australia.
Core skills still come first, and he calls them one hundred percent more important. But the modern game demands more, and he regrets the days he could have done fitness work rather than sitting on the couch. His broader point is about time. Young players do not realise how much of it they have until a family and a real job take it away.
His advice is to have a red-hot crack at it while the time is there, in batting, bowling or fitness, as long as the player is enjoying it. He also describes learning to take criticism. Advice heard twenty or thirty times eventually lands, and he matured enough to see that it meant taking good risks and making good decisions under pressure.
3. Coaches, repetition and practising until you cannot miss
Allenby credits the people around him. Early in his county career at Leicestershire he shared a dressing room with Paul Nixon, whom he describes as the most positive, team-oriented person he knows. Nixon rarely said anything in particular. It was the way he went about things, never dwelling on failure, that showed a young player how to carry himself.
In Western Australia, he believes his club was the only one training through the night, and he says a coach who is not lazy and puts in the time is fantastic for a player. His own bowling, he admits, was never technically amazing. It was built on volume, trial and error in the backyard and hours in the nets, where he learned to swing the ball.
He closes on repetition. Citing sports psychologist Jeremy Snape, he draws the line between practising until you get it right and practising until you do not get it wrong. Throwing a hundred balls and stopping only when you stop missing builds good habits. That standard is demanding for coaches too, and he thinks much of it comes back to coaches not being lazy.
