Darren Gough hails England new boy Matt Fisher as a ‘terrific leader’ and backs him as possible future Yorkshire captain
Darren Gough has sung the praises of England debutant Matt Fisher - and believes he could be a future captain of Yorkshire.
Gough, who knows Fisher well through his role as interim managing director of cricket at the county club, was speaking as part of talkSPORT 2’s commentary team during the second Test against the West Indies.
Fisher was a late addition to the starting line-up in Barbados after Craig Overton withdrew on the morning of the game through illness.
This is the first England Test squad that Fisher has been a part of, having got the call up after impressing on the England Lions tour of Australia before Christmas.
In their match against Australia A, Fisher only took two wickets but that included the scalp of Usman Khawaja, who would later go on to score twin tons against England in the Sydney Test match.
“I know [Matt] very well from over the last three months,” Gough said on commentary. “And from what I’ve seen, he’s a guy who since he’s come back from the England A tour is a lot fitter than he’d been from the reports I’d got.
“He looks trim and from all the testing we’ve been doing in the last four or five weeks he’s very fit.”
Fisher has long been considered somewhat of a cricketing prodigy, having made his professional debut at just 15 years old when he played in a one-day game for Yorkshire against Leicestershire in 2013.
Since then, injuries have prevented him from playing with any real regularity and in the seven years since his first-class debut in 2015 he has played just 21 matches with the red-ball.
However, from those appearances he has an excellent record having taken 63 wickets at an average of 27.52.
“He can bowl, let me tell you,” Gough said. “He’s a very impressive character, a very intelligent young man, very outspoken, but what else would you expect? He’s a Yorkshireman.
“But, he’s got a lot of empathy with it, he’s a terrific leader of men and I think from all the young men I’ve met at Yorkshire he was one of the first that stood out to me. And I was thinking that later down the line this is a possible captain, even though he’s so young and he’s a bowler. But he has definitely got true character.”