Paul Horton

Full Name	Paul Horton
Nickname	Horts
DoB	20th September 1982
Height	5' 10''
Bats/Bowls	Right hand/Right arm medium
Shirt Number	20
Lancashire	Debut 2003. Cap 2007
Tests	0
ODI	0

Profile

Paul Horton's career is a monument to the value of patience and self-belief.

By the start of the 2007 season the Australian-born batsman's twelve first-class matches had been spread over four summers and had yielded a respectable but hardly earth-shaking 601 runs; the highlight had probably been his 99 in a seemingly Mogadon-sponsored four-day fixture against Essex.

What happened next should encourage any talented young sportsman who is inclined to let the maggots of doubt gnaw at his confidence and sap his talent.

In two years following, Horton scored exactly 2,000 Championship runs and established himself as one of the first names on Lancashire's teamsheet.

At the end of the 2007 campaign he was awarded his county cap and named Player of the Year at Old Trafford's annual black-tie bash. The bloke who couldn't always get a game had suddenly become indispensable.

'Paul got to a sort of crossroads and he was perhaps thinking "I need to make a breakthrough and I need to make my mark" ', said Mike Watkinson as he reviewed the now 27-year-old's progress in the autumn of 2008.

From the moment he scored his maiden first-class hundred, against Worcestershire in May of 2007, his career has been littered with centuries and fifties. Two more three-figure scores followed that same summer, and in 2008 he passed fifty seven times in his first 14 visits to the crease. Horton doesn't dine out on his last big innings, he's too busy preparing for the next one.

2009 proved to be his most interesting season yet.

He was forced to wait until the penultimate Championship match of the season for his first Championship century of the summer - but when it came against Somerset at Taunton, it was a superb, and much needed, 173 off 287 balls. It was a career best to date.

’09 proved to be his most difficult in four-day cricket, as he recorded 776 at an average of 28.74.

But he will no doubt tell you that it was his most enjoyable season because of his performances in one-day cricket.

He had previously struggled to nail down a spot in the limited overs team in either one-day or Twenty20 cricket. In fact, prior to 2009, he had only played 27 matches in either form. But, in ’09, he played 25 Friends Provident, Pro40 and Twenty20 Cup matches.

He was the leading run-scorer in List A cricket with 569 runs at an average of 40.64, including two successive FPT centuries against Northamptonshire and Derbyshire, the highest being 111 not out against the latter at Old Trafford.

And he scored 166 runs from nine 20-over matches, with a best of 41.

When summing up his season he admitted his delight at cementing his place at the top of the order in all forms of cricket.

The batting of the Sefton Park player is grounded in an unfussy method and a fondness for percentage shots - the tuck off the hip, the push into a gap, the artful deflection. No one who saw him make his big hundreds against Yorkshire at Headingley could doubt that he also has the ability to punish the bad ball and hit pleasing boundaries on either side of the wicket, but he eschews flamboyance in favour of a trusted technique he is constantly honing.

Horton has other goals too. He has made no secret of his liking for captaincy and is regarded as one of the best skippers the county's Under 17 and Under 19 sides have ever had. If the Lancashire job comes along, he's not going to turn it down.

By the same token, he takes it for granted that any professional sportsman wants to represent his country and, despite being a Sydneysider, he aims to play for England. In the high summer of 2008 it seemed that he was well in line for a Lions tour but a dip in form (305 runs in the second half of the Championship season) led to him being overlooked.

In Mike Watkinson's view Horton's chances of international cricket will be increased if he pays no attention to the mere gossip about his receiving a call-up, but concentrates instead on scoring squillions of runs for Lancashire. "The selectors will talk about him because he scored a thousand runs in 2007 and 966 in 2008," said the Lancashire cricket director. "If you look to repeat that, bigger rewards will come."

It is a prescription for success which will probably appeal to the clear-thinking cricketer who is currently spending the winter playing for the Perth first grade side Gosnells as captain. Horton, you see, enjoys keeping it simple. He is deeply loyal to both Merseyside and Lancashire, and now he can also take pride in the fact that over the past three summers he has been the county's most consistent batsman.

Paul Edwards, Graham Hardcastle
(c) Lancashire County Cricket Club Ltd
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