Even more so when you consider I would sit there and watch an entire fifteen-frame snooker match. Dad showed the same level of enthusiasm, and that is undoubtedly where I inherited it all from. We both liked just about anything going that was competitive. Sport was always my escapism, even at primary school. Because my other communication skills were not the best, it was through playing that I expressed myself, I guess. My mum used to chuckle at the dedication I showed for re-enacting Olympic events – the hurdles might only have been cardboard and the javelin a bamboo stick but the skills were the same. I’ve always been pretty well coordinated, and I would regularly be found chucking a ball from hand to hand, or throwing one against a wall indoors or outdoors. My bedroom was home to various self-set training drills: I would throw a mini-football or tennis ball against the wall and as it rebounded I would practise either diving headers or diving catches, my bed acting as my crash mat. There was plenty of energy that needed releasing and I’ve always enjoyed throwing myself about.

When it wasn’t a ball, it would be a dart or a snooker cue in my hand. Even at seven and eight when others were interested in Star Wars , Lego or Meccano kits, I was sports obsessed. Only when I got into that lazy teenage stage did I develop a liking for computers but even then I was always active outside the house.

At junior school, I played short tennis in an indoor centre down the road, and football for the local team, Brierfield Celtic, in addition to cricket for Burnley’s junior teams. At St Theodore’s I played basketball. I was the shortest guy in the team and that meant I played centre. I loved it.

As a footballer, I started off at eight as a central defender, made my way to left wing and finished upfront, scoring a number of goals in my final two seasons before joining Lancashire CCC’s professional staff. My first sporting impact overseas actually came as a footballer. Brierfield travelled to France one summer to play in a rather large tournament, the size of which was enough to stupefy a 12-year-old. To this day I have no idea why the free kick I bent into the top corner that week was disallowed. I was too shy to ask. Later on, I hooked up with Burnley Belvedere, a sports club incorporating rugby, football and cricket teams, just over the back of where we lived.

Despite the football, though, and the collection of Burnley and Arsenal kits, there was only one shirt I ever wanted to pull on. I always dreamed of playing cricket for England.

Unless I was on the field of play, I tended to keep myself to myself but I was a lot different with my family to how I was with strangers. The fundamental characteristics of my personality have never changed: it has meant I am always cautious when meeting someone for the first time, and don’t tend to give much away. Some people express themselves quite openly, whereas I have always been quite guarded.

Yet ask my uncles and they would give you quite a different picture. They would tell you that within the family environment I always wanted to be the centre of attention. I was the complete show-off by all accounts. Once in public view, though, I reverted to type.

However, I have always craved the role of showman despite it being a role that you would expect to upset my stomach. No surprise then that as a 3-year-old I took centre stage as Joseph in the nursery Nativity and threw up down the back of an angel. Throughout my early career I was almost a walking paradox: quiet and reserved, I nevertheless wanted to be the big noise, for all eyes to be on me.

From a career perspective, I have always loved playing in sold-out stadiums. I have never liked games in front of 300 people; give me a packed MCG any day. Growing up I was always content in my home surroundings, and in my working life I have become accustomed to performing in front of huge audiences. It gives me a real buzz taking a crucial wicket in front of a full house at an Ashes Test or in a World Cup match.

My growth spurt at fifteen had its obvious benefits for my cricketing ability but was so severe – as with England footballer Steven Gerrard, it turned me from a small frame to a 6-ft-tall teenager inside twelve months – that it left me in quite a lot of pain at times.