And I owed him a lot because he always backed me, and little things like that are so important for a young cricketer.

He also sought to take some of the pressure off me, including setting my field for me on my Test debut, against Zimbabwe at Lord’s in May 2003. Normal practice is for an opening bowler to discuss field setting with his captain before the first over, but it was probably due to my tender years that he set mine for me that evening, and neglected to post a fine leg. Three times I was clipped to leg for four by Dion Ebrahim in one over, making a pig’s ear of my early figures, and he couldn’t have been more apologetic when he ran across at the end of the over. ‘Sorry, that was all my fault,’ he told me. ‘You just concentrate on getting into a rhythm.’

It was impossible not to feel how much Nasser wanted you to do well, and because of that you wanted to reciprocate. He also had a very dry sense of humour that I enjoyed. I thought him a funny bloke then, and still have a laugh with him whenever I see him now. Our relationship was always good on and off the field.

The same could be said of my relationship with Michael Vaughan, my other captain during my early England years, since he has retired. Unfortunately, however, despite our cordiality now, I didn’t enjoy Vaughan as a captain.

As I say, sometimes as a young fast bowler you just need to know that the bloke you’re pounding into the crease for has his arm around your shoulder, if not physically, then metaphorically at least.

Unfortunately, that is not something I ever felt playing under Vaughan. In contrast, I actually felt alone and isolated when I most needed support. The prime example was when I was recalled for the fourth Test against South Africa at the Wanderers in 2005.

I had spent the first few weeks of that tour, and subsequently the first three Tests, out of favour and therefore bowling at a single stump during lunch breaks, before and after play. My tour was one big net, my head was nowhere near international cricket, and because I had been so far removed from the selection equation for the opening matches I wasn’t even thinking about playing.

Of course, there will be those who counter that I should have been, that I was on an England tour and the natural extension of that was that it was my job to be ready. Nevertheless, when I was preferred to Simon Jones, and thrown into this game, it was a sudden shock. I was underprepared. By this time, it was five months since my last first-class action. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t bowl very well.

Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard shared the new ball, and although I started okay as first change, it wasn’t long before I began dragging it down short and wide. No two ways about it, I got clattered everywhere, didn’t really know what I was doing with the ball, or where it was going, and was soon shot of confidence.

When you feel like that, bowling is a real slog and even starts to feel unnatural. Vaughanie wandered up to me at one point during a spell and asked: ‘What’s up, mate? Radar gone?’

‘Yeah, I think it has,’ I said, desperate for some backing. All I received was a pat between the shoulder blades and an instruction to ‘keep going’.

‘Thanks for that,’ I thought.

My feeling is that a good captain should know how to talk to each and every one of his team as individuals. I don’t think Vaughan ever had that in him, and it is the major reason I’ve not held him in as high regard as others have. You see, from my experience he was not as good a captain as others made out. He was captain of a truly great team in 2005.

Good captains get players to perform above themselves at times by putting their players at ease, and although a lot has been made of Vaughan’s laconic style, I never felt comfortable playing under him. I never felt like he rated me: the language that he used with me was seldom positive and I didn’t like that. My judgement is formed from personal experience and while people might accuse me of forming it out of frustration at being out of favour for long stretches – admittedly the majority of his reign coincided with a time when I was struggling – I also had a good run in the team between 2007 and 2008 and flourished.

Even then, during times of sustained personal success, I still didn’t take to him as a captain. All I really wanted was for him to believe in me and my ability.

3

Red Rose Blooming

This will probably not come as a surprise, me being a sports-mad lad, from a sports-mad family, from a sports-mad town, but I felt just as passionately about Lancashire County Cricket Club as Burnley FC in my youth. I grew up as a Lancashire supporter, and when my desire to become a professional cricketer strengthened it was always Lancashire that I wanted to play for.

There would be a group of us – including my dad, and my uncle Mark – that headed down to Old Trafford to watch the odd Sunday League match, and to as many big cup games as we could get to. During the 1990s we were spoilt for big matches because Lancashire possessed a fine one-day team that progressed to quarter- and semi-final stages on a regular basis. We didn’t tend to go to as much Championship cricket because I was either playing myself or at school, yet it still felt like we spent our whole summers down there.

I used to love watching them play, and I was the proud owner of the first one-day replica shirt sold by the club, having received it as a birthday present one year. It was actually predominantly white, with LANCASHIRE emblazoned across it in blue and red letters. All the counties had similar kits that year – the name and the colours being the only difference.

Lancashire’s success in that period earned me my first ever trip to Lord’s, as a 12-year-old, for the Benson & Hedges Cup final against Kent in 1995, a match that was won despite Aravinda de Silva scoring a brilliant hundred.