Howzat! Cricketing prodigy Billy Carroll is all set to join the under- nines team at his local club – before he has even reached school age.

Billy’s batting and bowling skills have earned him a place at the age of three, playing alongside team-mates who will tower above him.

And remarkably, his feat continues a family tradition because his dad Paul did the same thing 28 years ago but he was a relatively old hand, joining the team when he was five.

Paul featured in the Telegraph & Argus in the 1980s and a photograph taken for that story still hangs in the clubhouse at Buttershaw St Paul’s cricket club.

Proud grandmother Jayne Gill revealed that finding cricket whites small enough to fit the tot may be the biggest problem the family face this season: “We had the same thing with Paul, someone knitted him a jumper and people helped out with the other clothes.

“When Paul told me he said ‘you’ll never believe me, but he’s beaten me by two years’.

“Billy lives and breathes cricket, he is very much like his dad. He has been involved in cricket all his life. When he was born there was a miniature cricket bat taken to the hospital. He will be batting and bowling.”

Billy will have to fit his cricketing around the time he spends at a private nursery, as he is not yet old enough for school.

Although Paul, 33, an electrician, of Clydesdale Drive, Wibsey, went on to play for other clubs, he eventually returned to Buttershaw St Paul’s, which has a strong family spirit.

Mrs Gill said: “I still have all the cuttings from when Paul appeared in the T&A and his photograph is still on display in the cricket pavilion.”