Howzat!

There cannot be many county cricketers who can claim to have been given out leg before coal bucket or caught in the outfield by a vase.

Essex opening batsman Ian Flanagan can.

And the cricket crazy Colchester left-hander is equally at home whether playing a muck around game on the front room carpet with his dad Roy or out in the middle on the most famous cricket ground in the world doing his stuff for the county at Lord's.

Roy, a former Colchester and East Essex captain and opener himself, saw to that from the moment Flanagan junior was big enough to hold a bat.

"Dad was my number one coach and a pretty good batsman in his playing days," said Ian.

"When I was little we were always playing cricket in the back garden - and the occasional broken vase or odd bit of broken china excepted - we even played in the front room using a sponge for a ball.

"I learned so much from dad just by watching him in his days at Coggeshall, Copford and Colchester and it made my day when I actually got to bat with him.

"Typical of dads, he wasn't going to be upstaged by his offspring and guess which one of us was run out!

"I was batting with a runner and dad left me high and dry."

From that day on Flanagan junior vowed to do things his way. The one-time Colchester Operatic Society performer has been striving to hit the right notes ever since and the Pirates of Penzance's loss was clearly Essex and England under 19s gain.

"There's only one Ian Flanagan," he said. And without sounding big-headed that's how the Cricket Youth World Cup gold medal winner wants it to be.

He nurtures a burning ambition to one day play Test cricket for England and to represent his beloved Essex for many years to come - his determination to achieve those goals is unyielding.

At 19 years of age, Ian's no starry-eyed kid with his head in the clouds, blinded by the kind of schoolboy hero-worship that suddenly brings a young player's ideals crashing to the ground.

Ian, more than most sportsmen of his tender years, is very aware of the outstanding quality and calibre of the world's top cricketers with whom he regularly rubs shoulders.

"There's a certain aura out in the middle when those guys are around and you cannot fail to be aware of their presence," he said.

"When you're that close to world famous stars such as Graham Gooch, Nasser Hussain, Stuart Law, Brian Lara, Allan Donald and Wasim Akram you can see why they are such great players.

"While it's very flattering to play with and against them, I don't want to be remembered because I play this stroke like Stu, that shot like Nasser and another like Lara.

"I will never stop learning from them, but I just want to be me. I have never had a particular role model to style myself on - I try to pick out the best in all of them."

That said, Ian - who has spent his past three winters in the sunshine of Pakistan, South Africa and New Zealand as a key member of England's under 19 squad - is in many ways a natural, thanks initially to his dad.

And that's where his mum Anita - another devoted Flanagan junior fan - comes in. She is heavily involved in the game and young Ian's future.

Anita regularly prepares the teas for Colchester and East Essex - Ian's club side - at Castle Park and it made the family's day last summer when he was selected to play for Essex in the county's Colchester festival week.

"It was a dream come true for all of us," said Ian.

"After watching the county play so many games at my home ground over the years I suddenly found myself a big part of it.

"While mum was making the bacon butties for us, dad - the foreman - just looked on proudly."

But that's where the family interest in cricket finishes.

Ian's three half brothers, Jason, Dominic and Matthew - all older than him - have never picked up a bat in anger and the only cricket they get to see is on Teletext.

That said, Roy and Anita don't get to see too much of Ian these days either.

"Mum and Dad say I only use the house as a hotel - it's all part of the glamorous life I lead," he said, "and they won't get to see me this winter either because I'm off to Australia to play grade cricket along with my old Colchester and East Essex Aussie team-mate Matthew Gooch.

"I just love playing cricket. It's what every kid dreams about," said the keen Spurs supporter who was educated at Colne Community School in Brightlingsea, where he enjoyed a wide interest in all sports including cricket, football and rugby union.

His talents with a cricket bat quickly earned him Essex honours at all levels from under 11 and he has represented England at under 17 and 19 levels too.

He made his County Championship debut for Essex against Warwickshire at Chelmsford in 1997. Now he is contemplating taking up martial arts and kick boxing.

"I'm game for anything," he said.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.