George Garton interview: Bears new boy not giving up on England dream

Riding the crest of a wave after making his England debut, Garton thought dreams held since childhood were coming true, only for illness to bring him crashing back down and at one stage place his career in doubt.

Now he is back, re-energised and eager to re-establish himself following a winter move from Sussex to Warwickshire, for whom he is poised to make his debut at Durham on Friday in the Natwest T20 Blast. There might not be a cricketer in the country looking forward to the start of the tournament more.

“I am desperate to get going,” he admits. “What happened was a big wake-up call. You never know what is round the corner.

“I was riding the wave and almost expecting this is what it is going to be like for the rest of my career.

“To be shot down like that, it does give you perspective and the realisation we are incredibly lucky to do what we do. I’m going to make sure I make the most of it.”

Garton was only 24 when he played for England in a T20 international against the West Indies, in Bridgetown, in January, 2022.

Even then, it had felt a long time coming for a player whose ability to bowl left arm at considerable pace (Garton has been clocked at well over 90mph) saw him anointed a future star before he was barely out of his teens.

Called up by England Lions when he had made just four List A appearances, he was even drafted into the senior group as short-term cover ahead of the 2017-18 winter tour.

The full England debut, meanwhile, came after a 2021 season in which Garton played in the IPL, Big Bash and helped the Southern Brave win the inaugural Hundred tournament.

But on returning to Sussex in the spring, it quickly became clear something was badly wrong.

“I was very fatigued, out of breath all the time, with a really high heart rate,” is how Garton now describes symptoms initially diagnosed as Long Covid before, several months later, it emerged he has a blood clot on his lung. Remarkably, through all the pain, he carried on playing.

“I played 14 or 15 matches that year, when I probably should not have played any,” he explains. “That would have been the medical advice, had it been diagnosed as a blood clot from the start.

“It took about six months, like the doctor said it would, before my body felt back to normal.”

That was the physical side sorted. The mental recovery would take far longer. Even now, Garton admits, it is probably not complete.

“I have spoken to the psychologist here a fair bit about my mental approach, coming back,” he says.

“2021 was such a big high for me, breaking into the England set up, making my debut for England playing in the IPL.

“I had the feeling I was achieving what I wanted to and my dreams were coming true. Then, through no fault of my own, it all stops.

“It takes time to process that, to understand and accept you are not going to just jump straight back to where you were before.

“There is a process of getting better and pushing yourself again. It was the mental side of trusting my body to be good. It had been poor for six months and I had to trust it would be back to normal.”

In previous interviews, Garton has expressed a desire to first simply rediscover his love for the game. If it were not to happen at Sussex, where he grew up just a short distance from the ground, then Warwickshire, whose head coach Mark Robinson he first met aged five, always looked a shrewd alternative bet.

The move from Hove to Edgbaston, following a 2023 season in which he felt fit but struggled to make an impact, came after some honest discussions with director of cricket Paul Farbrace.

There were some equally frank talks with Robinson ahead of joining the Bears for a player who, while his focus now is on white-ball and the shorter formats, is still aiming for the highest level regardless of the setbacks.

“I still have aspirations to play Test match cricket for England,” says Garton. “At some stage, hopefully, I will fulfil that. I have not given up on anything.

“One of the benefits of having known Robbo so long is I was very open and honest with him about what I felt was the best way for me to get back to 100 per cent.

“He kind of agreed that sometimes you have to take one step back in something to go two step forwards.

“We felt if I could focus on one thing, on one format, when I initially joined it would serve me better down the line.

“I am really looking forward, at some stage, playing red ball cricket for the Bears. I can’t tell you when or where because I don’t know myself. It is definitely part of the discussion.

“I have not given up on anything. It was just with the move it felt better to focus on one thing first.”

For now, that is the Blast, a tournament the Bears are aiming to win for the second time a decade on from the first. The addition of both Garton and Richard Gleeson, leading wicket taker when he last featured in the tournament two seasons ago, to a bowling attack which also features Chris Woakes and Hasan Ali has only heightened expectation of a team which has topped the North Group the past two seasons but gone out in the quarter-finals on both occasions.

“It is exciting for us but it does put a target on our heads that we are the team to beat,” says Garton. “Last year the Bears were top of the group and we are going in, I guess, as favourites to do that again.

“We have something to prove. We have the talent but you don’t win games on paper. We have to go and show what we can do.”