Joker Havell is getting serious

Havell admits he spent too much time in his first season on the staff hamming it up in his role as the dressing room wag.

But at the end of last summer the message to him from Chris Adams and Peter Moores was spelt out in no uncertain terms: Get your act together or you won't have a future with Sussex.

Havell, Australian born but with strong Sussex roots, got the message.

He worked hard on his fitness during the winter and then made a subtle adjustment to his bowling action. He is now bowling with a slightly lower arm which has enabled him to swing the ball more consistently rather than angling it with a straighter arm into the batsmen.

There were promising signs that Havell was about to start fulfilling his potential on the pre-season tour of Grenada and after some impressive early season performances for the second team he made his first-class debut last week.

Seven overs in a rain affected draw against Cambridge University at soggy Fenner's probably was not how Havell imagined he would be announcing himself to the cricket world when he pitched up in the Melbourne nets on England's last Ashes tour and promptly knocked Michael Atherton's poles out of the ground with his first ball.

But it is a start, and the 20-year-old now believes his days as the joker are over.

"I think it took me a while to get nailed on, I was a bit of a team joker last year," he said.

"It's always nice to be popular, but I've realised there is a time and a place. I have started to gain a bit more respect now on and off the pitch, it's been nice when senior players like Chris Adams and James Kirtley, whom I respect an awful lot, tell me they have been impressed with my work and tell me to keep going."

Havell took just eight wickets in 2nd XI Championship cricket last season which was a pretty poor return for someone who is probably the quickest bowler on the county's staff.

"The important thing for me now is to go back to the second team and start taking lots of wickets. I enjoyed my debut at Cambridge last week, but the real thing for a professional cricketer is to play Championship matches and that is my aim. If the coaches decide they want to rest one or two of our main bowlers later in the season I want to be in a position to stake my claim to play."

It would have been hard a year ago when Havell looked in danger of wasting his obvious talent to imagine that 12 months on he would actually be captaining a Sussex side. But Havell headed to Taunton yesterday to play for the Sussex Academy against Somerset and his first taste of captaincy since he led Cuckfield under-14s.

"I've gone down there to help out a few of the youngsters and get a few more overs under my belt because the second team Championship is a bit stop-start at the moment, but it's been a while since I captained a team so that should be fun."