JACK CARSON INTERVIEW: I am combative and competitive. It's ingrained into me. Now I'm determined to play Test cricket for England

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Jack Carson, the Ulster off-spinner who is making waves by the Sussex seaside, sounds almost disappointed that his chosen style is no threat to life or limb. But he is damned if that is going to blunt his edge.

Among spinners in last summer’s County Championship, only Hampshire’s Liam Dawson took more wickets than his 50. This season, Carson has begun with five in a draw with Warwickshire and useful runs in an impressive win over Somerset. 

Newly-promoted Sussex are joint top of Division One going into Friday's big game against champions Surrey at Hove, and Carson – at 24, still in his slow-bowling infancy – has his eye on the England Test team.

‘You can’t run in and bowl 90mph at the head, which would be a lovely skill to have,’ he tells Mail Sport. ‘Obviously, I don’t possess that ability. So the aggression manifests itself in a mindset where you’re always trying to take wickets, and giving off to the batter that you’re always trying to get the better of them.’

Carson comes from Waringstown in Northern Ireland, on the border of County Down and County Armagh, where cricket became a phenomenon thanks to English linen-mill owners. 

He once scored 600 runs in a season without being dismissed and took five for six in an Under 13 game, and describes cricket when he was growing up as ‘the biggest sport in the village, with a couple of hundred kids at the club on a Monday night’.

Ulster-born Jack Carson is making waves at Sussex after taking 50 wickets last season

The 24-year-old off-spinner once scored 600 in a season without being dismissed once

He has his sights set on a spot in the England Test team under Brendon McCullum (right)

Most significantly, he attributes his natural feistiness to his upbringing, which pitched him against adults while still a boy.

‘It’s probably a cultural thing, coming from Northern Ireland,’ he says. ‘There’s no real schools cricket back home, so you’ve got grown men trying to hit you for six from the age of 12. It’s ingrained early. Everyone has their edge in different ways, and with me it comes out in being combative and competitive.’

The selectors are keeping close tabs. Carson dismissed Joe Root for nine while playing in Abu Dhabi for England Lions against an England team en route to a Test series in Pakistan in November 2022, then toured Sri Lanka with the Lions early in 2023, and India in early 2024. 

He spent last winter playing grade cricket for West Torrens in Perth. How did the Australians treat his finger spin? ‘Like everyone else,’ he smiles. ‘With disdain.’

Sussex head coach Paul Farbrace is a fan. ‘He can definitely be an international cricketer,’ he says. ‘The one thing he’s found a bit challenging is not his skill level – it’s controlling his emotions. But I’d rather a young cricketer had that edge than the other way round. If you want to play international cricket, you’ve got to have something about you.’

Farbrace may be alluding to a bad-tempered game in September 2023, when Carson attempted to trip up Leicestershire batsman Ben Cox, earning a one-match ban. He later apologised, blaming his ‘desperation to compete’ and promising to ‘learn from the experience’.

It’s no surprise, perhaps, that Carson’s idol is the former Test off-spinner Graeme Swann, who was never shy of the fray himself, and has worked with him in the England set-up. 

‘Jack can be brilliant,’ says Swann. ‘He’s a big turner of the ball, and we’ve worked on controlling his pent-up aggression and emotions when he’s on the field. If he can point them in a positive direction, there’s no reason he can’t play Test cricket.’

He attributes his feistiness to his upbringing, which pitched him against adults while still a boy

Carson’s idol is former England off-spinner Graeme Swann, who was never shy of the fray

Even so, Carson was disheartened by his performances with the Lions in India, not least because the tour overlapped with the visit of Ben Stokes’s Test side. Instead, Shoaib Bashir leapt to the front of England’s off-spinning queue.

‘I would have loved to have taken 20 wickets on that tour and been a standout, and had people talking about you, but it didn’t happen,’ he says.

‘Swanny had a go with England early in his career, and it didn’t quite happen, but after six or seven years of being the best spinner in county cricket he finally got picked, and straight away he was one of the best spinners in the world because of that time he’d spent playing and getting to know his game. When he got that chance, he was the best version of himself.

‘My reason for coming over here from Northern Ireland was to play Test cricket for England. It was brilliant to be part of the Lions set-up: all the facilities and staff you have, and you’re treated like a king for a month. There’s a buzz about it.

‘If I can put in similar performances this year, hopefully it’s not too far away. You don’t want to be obsessed, and it’s important not to look too far ahead, because I love playing for Sussex. But I’d love to play Test cricket for England.’