‘We are raring to go’: Keith Barker primed for 15th county campaign

W hen Keith Barker and his older brother Dean were growing up, their dad was a stickler for good behaviour in the house. If they were playing cricket though, it was a different story – a smashed ornament here, a broken mirror there, he never said a word.

But from the moment Dean taught four-year-old Keith his first stepover, cricket had a rival. Keith turned down the opportunity of a Lancashire contract aged 16 and threw himself into football, playing England Under-18, Under-19 and Under-20 games, and signing for Blackburn Rovers. But the dream of regularly slotting in goals as a professional slipped between his fingers, between the vagaries of new management, luck and fancy.

Football’s loss was cricket’s gain, and on Thursday Barker starts his 15th summer as a professional cricketer, when Hampshire entertain Nottinghamshire at the Rose Bowl in the first round of this year’s County Championship.

“I’m feeling pretty good,” he says, “We’ve done a lot of work behind the scenes, the lads are raring to go. We’ve been pushing for the trophy for a while, we’re close, it has twice been within our reach.”

Hampshire last won the Championship in 1973, but have been in the mix over the last few years, spearheaded by one of the best attacks in the country – with Barker, Kyle Abbott and Mohammad Abbas pawing the ground at the top of their marks, each capable of causing havoc, each finishing with 50-plus first-class wickets last season.

“I remember, before we signed Mo Abbas, saying: ‘Imagine having Abbas and Abbott in the same team, it would be phenomenal’ – and it is. Their skills are unbelievable and they are so consistent in what they do, it is rare they miss.

“You’ve got three bowlers who could open the bowling very easily, some