An Interview With Ben Horne

As a part of my recent work experience with the local radio station, WCR FM, I interviewed Ben Horne, a professional cricket player from New Zealand, who recently retired and has been playing for Wolverhampton Cricket Club this year as they returned to the top flight of the Birmingham Premier League. He’s been exceptional, scoring 410 runs and taking 22 catches. His efforts with bat, ball, and gloves are one of the main reasons why the newly promoted Wolverhampton currently sits in 4th place.

Q: How has the transition from life in New Zealand to Wolverhampton been?

A: It was an interesting one, obviously coming out of a Kiwi summer to what I thought would be an English summer, but when I arrived here it was still single-figure degrees and not a lot of warm clothing. For the first couple of weeks, on the field as well, I certainly felt a long way from home. The wickets in March in New Zealand are pretty batter-friendly. They’re nice and hard and a little bit low and slow, so not too much in it for the seamers. Coming to here where it was still coming out of the depths of winter and it was quite soft and grassy, doing a lot off the surface. So it took a few weeks to get up to speed and transition and now obviously we are having a bloody hot summer, which is great! We had a shocking summer in New Zealand, so it’s great to be having some hot and sunny weather. It was good though, the people at the club made it really easy for me to transition and got around me. It’s been an awesome bunch of people and an awesome club environment so that’s made things really easy.

Q: You recently retired after a successful career with Auckland, what fuelled that decision?

A: I played for 7 years for Auckland which was an awesome time and a great bunch of people again. I think the season before last, I achieved what I wanted to achieve in the game. My goals at that stage were to captain the Auckland team and to win a Plunkett shield, which is the same as the County Championship over here. We achieved that the season before last and then last season I didn’t really reset my goals and at times felt myself going through the motions a little bit. So I had a think around going forward, where do I wanna be? I feel like I got what I wanted to get out of the game. You know I’m not early 20s anymore, I’m in a different stage of my life. I had a great job last winter with a company in New Zealand and they were really keen to make something work around getting me back, which I was very thankful for. I decided to take them up on that opportunity and walk out still being at a stage where I was playing competitively and on my own terms, which was nice.

Q: How did it come about that you bat, bowl, and wicketkeep which is very rare for a player?

A: Throughout my career, I had always been a batter who bowled a little bit of spin. For the New Zealand Under 19s, that's what I was picked to do. We decided to only take one wicketkeeper, so I put my hand up to be the backup wicketkeeper. I had to do a bit of training with the keeper at the time [Cam Fletcher] and I started really enjoying it. I was getting to the point where my spin wasn’t gonna take me any further. Then, it had just so happened that at the time when I got back to Auckland, our club team was going through a stage where the keeper had retired and there were a couple of people that could do it but didn't really want to. So, I put my hand up to do that. I started getting really heavily involved in the keeping side of things and thought if I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do it properly and make sure that I’m not just a guy that bats and puts a pair of gloves on. I wanted to actually be a proper wicketkeeper. I worked really hard on that and then the bowling took the back seat for a few years. When I got picked for Auckland, I got picked as a batter with another guy keeping at the time [Glenn Phillips]. A couple of games we were just short a spinner or someone got injured and I had been bowling in the nets, so I got a couple of overs here and there. That was nice so I always kept up bowling in the nets but primarily was a wicketkeeper batter but could always take the gloves off and roll the arm over, should I need to or should the situation arise!

Q: Can you remember a specific moment that kickstarted your love for cricket and what was it?

A: It was always the done thing in New Zealand, cricket was the summer sport, as it is over here. So you kind of just get put into those camps. I was never any good at rugby and I tried my hand at football, I was never good at that! Then I finished on hockey so I played cricket in the summer and hockey in the winter. It wasn't really a specific moment, necessarily, but I really enjoyed the team environment, and a lot of my mates, throughout my school years played cricket. So, we had this core group of guys who played all the way through to 1st XI cricket at school.

‘The camaraderie, the strategic element, the thought process behind winning a game of cricket, particularly in the field, outthinking players and building toward wickets, bowling from both ends and building pressure in the field; they were the elements that really captured my attention.’

I kept going because I got picked for a few teams and then I got to play men's cricket at a club level. The same kind of thing happened all over again but at a higher level, it was always about outthinking other players and how can we eke results with the team being bigger than just the sum of its parts if you will. So I really enjoyed that element and that has always been the reason I played the game because the people who I play with, I really enjoy playing with and they are some of my best mates. The camaraderie and the culture that you get in a cricket team is not quite like anything else that you get throughout sports.

Q: Your dad and your uncle both played for New Zealand, what impact did they have on your cricket?

A: Phil, my dad, played for New Zealand in the late 80s/early 90s as an opening batter. My uncle [Matthew] played in the late 90s/2000s, also as an opening batter. So I suppose I was destined to have a cricket bat in my hands! Having said that, I was never pushed to play cricket by my parents. My old man also played badminton for New Zealand, as did my mum, that’s how they met. So sports was in the family but they didn't really care what kind of sport it was, they were just keen to get me out, playing with other guys and making sure I was getting that social element as well. Certainly runs in the family but I was never pushed to play cricket which is awesome, and I found my own way and got there myself which is always nice!

Q: You’ve played over 150 games for Auckland in New Zealand, but which is the most memorable for you and why?

A: There’s actually one that sticks out. We played a four-day game against Northern District at home. It was quite a special game because my 2 flatmates at the time, Lockie Ferguson and Henry Cooper, both played in that game. Lockie and I for Auckland and Henry for Northern District, so we kind of all went to the game together, joking around: “Good luck mate but not too much” and “Burgers tonight, what we having for dinner”. It was quite special with Lockie bowling, Henry batting and myself keeping, all kind of being in the action at the same time. Henry ended up getting a hundred in that game [111]. Then, one of my old mates from school, Mark Chapman, and I put on a big partnership [205] in the 4th innings to help us seal the game and chase down around 380. We both ended up getting hundreds and we were 9 down needing 2 runs in the last over so all 3 results were still on the table and we managed to get over the line. Probably to this day, that’s one of my most cherished cricketing memories, playing that 4-dayer with a lot of my great mates and being able to get it over the line in the last over of the entire game having played for 4 days, that one was pretty special.

Q: You mentioned how you played with Lockie Ferguson, who’s obviously a great bowler, but who is the toughest bowler you've had to face, and what makes them stand out to you?

A: I think when I was growing up and always through the age groups and into early first-class stuff, Ish Sodhi was the guy who really had my number. Back then when leg spin wasn’t as prevalent in age groups cricket, certainly good leg spin, he was miles ahead of everyone else. He had a big spinning wrong’un which was very hard to pick. It was very challenging, so it was always nice to be on the same team as him, whether it be for Auckland age groups or at the Under 19 World Cup. So, he was one I always found very challenging to face. Lots of guys in the Auckland setup had been really strong bowlers, guys like Ben Lister, who is starting to come through and play a bit of Blackcaps cricket at the moment, bowls left arm over the wicket, swings it away, quite an interesting setup. Certainly, Ish bullied me a lot with his wrong’un and his slider and all that kind of stuff when we were growing up through the age groups, so probably him. I’m in his pocket quite a fair amount.

Q: Which coach has had the greatest impact on your game and what about them helped you improve the most?

A: Probably 3 guys. My 1st XI school coach, Roy Goodyear, he taught me the value of the team culture aspect and that you succeed more often when you’re feeling comfortable in the team environment. He taught us that a good team is greater than the sum of its parts or not only as good as its best player, whatever it might be. That really got my juices flowing in that regard in terms of extracting every little bit of performance out of your team, even if on paper you're not the better team on the day.

Then, Parnell Cricket Club coach, Ian Trott, who is Jonathan Trott’s old man. He wears whites to every training and game so he’s a very traditional man but he helped me transition from schoolboy cricket to men's cricket and understand the little nuances of the game. He coached me through district age groups as I was growing up and then he ended up coaching me at Parnell, which is a men's team in the Premiers. He helped me understand that just because you have a certain amount of shots, it’s not gonna cut it against men who have been around for a long time and understand how to set guys up, so he helped me hone my skills there.

Finally, Mark O'Donnell, who was my first-class coach. I had a relationship with him through age group Auckland stuff as well. He helped me take the serious side out of it a little bit but also kept me accountable to myself around what I needed to work on and not to try and conform to the ‘textbook’ player but to play to my strengths and to keep working on your weaknesses but also remember the reason why you got picked in the team.

So, those guys had a lot of impact on me growing up and I’m very thankful for my interactions with them.

Q: What’s next for you and are you looking to stay in Wolverhampton for the future?

A: I’m certainly here for the season, it’s been awesome getting around the club. I think I can see a lot of similarities between Wolverhampton and New Zealand. You know, we are kind of the underdogs, being promoted into the Birmingham Premier League from being in the second division last year, I think expectations were that we wanted to try and stay in the Premier competition but with the performances we’ve put on the board now, we are looking a little bit higher than that. I’d love to go out on a winning note. As you’ve said, I’ve retired now, so it will be a nice little foray into the next part of my journey with a win, if possible. Happy to be out on the paddock with the boys every week, which is awesome. Then I’ll be going back to my job in New Zealand which is in recruitment. I recruit for sales and marketing roles in Auckland, which I’m really looking forward to. Recently bought a house which I haven’t been able to live in yet because I’ve been over here so looking forward to moving back into that and just spending a lot more time with my non-cricketing mates who, rightly or wrongly, I don't get to catch up with as much being in the cricketing circle. Just looking forward to getting back, stuck into my friendships, and playing a lot of golf, I’d imagine! I’ll certainly keep an eye on the scorecards as they come through from the teams that I’ve played with.

I would just like to thank Ben for giving up his time to speak to me and thank you to WCR FM for allowing me to air this interview.