Joe Sayers may have two new feathers in his cap come the end of October.
The Yorkshire opening batsman could be a County Championship winner as well as an author, although the latter title is more certain than the former despite the county’s excellent start to the new season.
Oxford University graduate Sayers is in the process of penning a diary of the club’s 150th anniversary year, which is due to be published shortly after the end of the season by Great Northern Books.
The left-hander is approximately 30,000 words through the book, which he estimates will total 80,000, although he has not decided on a title yet.
Sayers said: “There’s nothing official just yet with the title. We have a few ideas at this stage but books just evolve and you find a theme or a phrase or something that is a good label.
“It’s the official book of the 150th year of the club seen through the eyes of one of the players. Obviously that player is myself.
“It’s going to have the chronology of a dressing room diary but also have diversions into trying to give a taste of what modern Yorkshire cricket is about and an insight into what is happening now. It will just complement what has gone before.
“There is naturally a lot of looking back in an anniversary year but this is going to be the official record of the 150th year that will hopefully be around for a long time.
“I’m going to also try to highlight issues within the game and within the county. There is still plenty to write.”
Sayers will follow in the footsteps of former Nottinghamshire batsman Mark Wagh and current Australian Test opener Ed Cowan as the most recent players to pen diaries of a season.
Cowan’s excellent book ‘In the Firing Line’ was written through the Australian domestic campaign in 2010-11 – his second season with Sheffield Shield champions Tasmania.
Sayers and Cowan are actually good friends. They played together for Oxford University in 2003, with Sayers captaining the students’ side when Cowan made his first-class debut against Middlesex at the Parks.
“Ed also slept on my floor for a while at Oxford,” quipped Sayers, who will come face to face with the Aussie left-hander at Scarborough this week. Cowan is Nottinghamshire’s overseas player in the build-up to the Ashes.
Sayers will hope that he, like Cowan, is also writing about a title-winning season – even if he has to undertake the dreaded rewrite.
“I will be quite happy to rewrite and cut out chunks if that was happen,” said the 29-year-old batsman.
“If we were in that position, it would define the season. The nature of sport is that the last hour can define the six months that have gone before.
“I’ve got to be in a good position having got everything edited and sorted going into September, just in case we are in the race for silverware.
“It’s going to have to be signed and sealed within a few days of the end of the season, which is September 27, and straight to the publishers for getting on to the shelves.”
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