Neurodiversity week is not just about celebrating difference. It’s also about considering the power of treating people differently, approaching them as individuals and working out how to get the very best out of everyone. As this story demonstrates, great managers and captains have been doing exactly this for decades.

When I first started playing representative cricket for Sussex I had a captain, whose name I have forgotten, but whose example I never have. Let’s call him Andy.  

Andy was not the best player in the team, he batted middle order and only bowled when a declaration was on the cards, or his seamers needed a breather. His fielding was not memorable but the way he treated his players certainly was.  

My debut came at picturesque Glynde against a Kent side captained by a very promising cricketer called Chris Hollins, son of the Chelsea FC legend John, who later went on to find fame as a presenter on the BBC (and in Strictly). I turned up, that day, to much sniggering, with some very cheap and tatty boots and my protective box in a Tesco carrier bag. No pads, no bat, no giant “coffin” in which to carry them. I was presented not just with my Sussex cap and sweater but also with a nickname: “village”. This was new territory for me, and it became clear very quickly that I simply didn’t fit. My father had not been a cricketer. He told me proudly that he would buy me a bat when I learned how to bat and, to be fair to him, as a fast bowler in the Bob Willis mould, I never had.  

As I took to the field that morning I felt like an impostor, and I bowled like an impostor. In those opening overs I did everything to convince my teammates that they were right in their assessment of me. My speeds were down, my radar was off and I spent half my time on the boundary simply begging that the ball would not be hit in my direction. I would have called myself “village”, but it would have been an insult to every weekend cricketer marking out their runs or taking guard across the country.  At the other end, a young tyro, Danny, (later to play for Sussex and Essex at senior level) was roaring in, full of boyish energy and the fire of self-belief. But this was not his day and as he huffed and puffed and cussed his fielders, the umpires, the pitch, the weather…Hollins made hay.  

After a few overs of this I saw Andy approaching and steeled myself for a stint exiled at fine leg. Instead, he put his arm round me, took my cap and walked me back to my mark. “Listen, Matt,” he calmly proffered, “you’re here because you are the fastest bowler in the county, people wiser than both of us have selected you for this team because you are good enough. I completely trust their judgement, and I have complete faith in you. Show us what you can do.” He placed the ball gently into my palm and walked back to mid-off. I honestly don’t remember what happened next, but I do remember precisely how those words made me feel.  

At the other end Danny is still mouthing off to all and sundry, venting frustration and doing his best to remind everyone that, of these two underperforming opening bowlers, he is every inch the boss. Andy has other ideas. “He’s quicker than you, Danny, and better looking too, you’re going to need to up your game to keep your place in this team, my friend”. And Danny spits and Danny glowers and Danny takes two wickets in his next over. And bit by bit the tide turns, the game changes and Andy’s interventions start to pay. When I flatten Hollins’ stumps with a snorting Yorker, the game is up for Kent. The damage done, the contest won.

Andy never made it as a professional cricketer, but I feel certain he made it as a person, as a leader, perhaps also as a parent. For my part I know I owed him a little more. At very least I could have remembered his name.