If you ever want advice from someone about making the best out of a challenging situation, Yorkshire disability bowling star Alex Jervis may be the perfect person to speak to.
Jervis, a 26-year-old adopted Yorkshireman from Worksop, has been an integral part of the county’s set-up for the last 14 years and has been around the England Learning Disability squad for much of the last 10.
Unfortunately, however, as with all walks of life, Coronavirus put a spanner in the works.
There were no international series such as the Ashes played, in which Jervis made his England debut Down Under in 2015 and was part of the squad who won the most recent series in 2019.
So the seamer had to concentrate his efforts elsewhere.
Thankfully, Yorkshire Cricket was at the heart of those efforts, helping to further develop opportunities for others and raising awareness of disability cricket.
One of the main things he did was to ensure Yorkshire’s hardball D40 (which is a multi impairment team, featuring players with hearing, learning and physical disabilities.) team played their first fixtures for a number of years.
He helped organise and coach players as well as raising vital funds.
Jervis also learned sign language to ensure strong communication with players, while also helping out with recruitment.
“As soon as I got involved in disability cricket, my vision was A, how long can I go for? B, looking at the coaching side,” he explained. “Because of Covid, the coaching side has been my main focus.
“We’ve had no international cricket, so that’s not been on my radar.
“The Yorkshire D40 side, I’m very proud to have helped get them back playing.
“A lot of players left because there was a change in rules and they weren’t eligible.
“So we have been trying to build up a new squad to get into the Disability League, which we did last year. Through some contacts I know, I got seven new deaf players to join the squad.”
