NORTH Devon batsman Dan Bowser flew out to Australia this week for his second Ashes tour with an England team.
Bowser, 31, is in a squad of 15 picked by the England Learning Disability selectors for the five-match tour.
The squad touched down on Sunday and has been practising in the nets for the first game of the series in Brisbane on October 8.
Over a 10-day period between October 8-18 England will play the Aussies in three one-day internationals and five T20 games.
The T20 games are part of the INAS Global Games, which are the world’s biggest sports event for athletes with an intellectual impairment.
Bowser qualifies to play due to a processing impairment that affects some of his reading.
The hard-hitting left-hander first toured Australia in 2015 when England met the Aussies in a six-match series in Melbourne. England won the series 5-1 and Bowser caned the Aussie for a ton in the second match.
Since then Bowser has featured in a number of England squads and made telling contributions.
When England won the INAS Tri-Series in this country in 2017, Bowser was the undisputed batsman of the competition in all formats. He settled the tourney in England’s favour with a half-century in the win over South Africa in the T20 final at Nantwich.
Bowser, who topped North Devon 1st XI’s Premier Division batting averages (40.8) and aggregates (481) last season, has been playing for England LD sides since 2013.
Preparations for the latest series started exactly a year ago with a training camp at Worcester CCC.
It has been an eventful few weeks for Bowser, who was a guest of the ECB at Lord’s in mid-August when he received a Spirit of Cricket award on day two off the Ashes test against Australia.
Bowser was nominated for his sportsmanlike actions on England LD duty last year when he was instrumental in getting captain Chris Edwards to ‘call back’ a Danish batsman given out in error.
“There was daylight between the ball and the edge and I knew it wasn’t out so started waving my arms about to attract the umpire’s attention,” Bowser said at the time.
“I am not the sort of person who can win a game of cricket knowing it has not been won fairly. I knew the batsman was not out and had to say something.”
It was sporting call by Bowser as England were only eight runs ahead. They went on to win the game by three runs.
The Spirit of Cricket award, which Bowser shared with Edwards, was commissioned in memory of the late Christopher Martin-Jenkins, a celebrated cricket writer and broadcaster.
Bowser was invited to join the BBC Test Match Special team in their media centre at Lord’s and tell his and Edwards’ story to cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew.
Click here to hear the full TMS interview
