Sam Hain reflects on becoming the first Bears player in four years to be capped when he received the honour from captain Jeetan Patel at the end of the team huddle before the Royal London Cup match against Northamptonshire last Wednesday.
Sam Hain admits that he is “more than proud” to have been awarded his Warwickshire cap.
Hain became the first Bears player in four years to be capped when he received the honour from captain Jeetan Patel at the end of the team huddle before the Royal London Cup match against Northamptonshire last Wednesday.
It was a well-deserved accolade, perhaps rather overdue with Hain having played more than 100 games across all formats for Warwickshire and scored 15 centuries. And it left the 22-year-old almost speechless.
“I had no idea it was going to happen and was a little bit lost for words,” Hain said. “I didn’t really know how to sum up how I was feeling. More than proud.
“It is such an honour and something I have been striving for a while. One of the reasons I have been playing is to try to get that white bear on my head.
“Jeets got us all in a group before the game and talked a bit about the game coming up then, at the end, said ‘there’s one more thing – Hainy,’ I can’t really remember what he said after that, to be honest, it’s all a bit of a blur. I am absolutely over the moon.”
Since making an accomplished 42 against a strong Middlesex attack on his debut as an 18-year-old in 2014, Hain has become a bedrock of the Bears’ batting in all formats. He scored a century on his England Lions debut against West Indies in March and is clearly in the England selectors’ notebooks though, for now, just keen to keep impressing for the Bears.
And that means striving to get back to his most productive in red-ball cricket alongside his excellent white-ball form of the last two years.
“Things are going well for me at the moment, though it certainly hasn’t been all plain sailing,” he said. “It has been quite a journey over the last few years and there have been ups and downs but I feel that my game is now in quite a good place.
“Last Wednesday was just an unbelievably proud day for myself and one I will never forget. Standing here at Edgbaston, the place I love, I don’t really know how to sum it up in words. I am immensely proud to be part of this club and very excited about what we might achieve in the coming years.
“I have had a lot of nice comments from people welcoming me to the group of capped players and I want to be part of this group for many years to come as my career develops.”
