I'm not a big fan of white-ball cricket, asserts Gary Neville

The Manchester United legend opens up about his favourite cricketer, test cricket’s importance and much more.

Gary Neville played over 400 times for his childhood club, Manchester United and went on to win eight Premier League trophies. The former United and England captain visited India again after 12 years for the “United We Play” initiative, which is being led by leading tyre-maker Apollo Tyres in association with Manchester United.

Gary Neville spent his full day in Chandigarh doing football activities, but he managed to find time for his second favourite sport, cricket. The United legend shared the cricket field with ICC T20 World Cup 2007 winner Piyush Chawla and opened up about his cricket memories.

When asked to reflect on his childhood, the former United captain shared his experience of dividing his teenage years between cricket and football.

“I love cricket, it’s the second sport in my life. I spent so many evenings and weekends in the summers in England playing cricket. I played for my local club called Green Mountain. We used to play cricket in summer and football in winter,” he reminisced when asked about his first memories of cricket.

On choosing football over cricket as a career

“I could not have done it because I started playing for Manchester United when I was 14 and went full-time at 16, but my brother (Phil Neville) had a choice whether to go to be a professional cricketer or a professional football player and he chose to play football.”

“I think that obviously me being at United was a big influence on him and something that I think influenced his mindset to go and play football for United. It was a difficult choice for him though because he absolutely loves cricket,” Gary Neville added.

Test cricket is the ultimate format

“I do not follow current cricket. But, I will be honest with you, growing up, I did. I love cricket. I love test cricket. I love its endurance. I love the idea of players’ concentration being tested in test matches. I am not a big fan of the T20 and One-Day, it will surprise some people. But, I love test cricket. It is amazing,” he noted when asked about following the matches currently going on.

Favourite cricketer of all-time

“My all-time favourite cricketer is Shane Warne or Vivian Richards, I would say. I can’t separate them,” Neville said.

“Current favourite cricketer? Well, he’s just retired, but Jimmy Anderson was my favourite cricketer because he comes from my county where I was born and obviously, he’s got to be one of England’s greatest bowlers,“ Neville said about his favourite cricketer of the modern era.

Former teammate who could have succeeded in cricket

“Paul Scholes would have been a good cricketer if he pursued cricket,” the Englishman revealed when asked by United fans who would have been a good cricketer among his teammates.

Piyush Chawla shares his experience of teaming up with Neville

“Gary Neville showed me one picture where he opened the batting with Mathew Hayden long back in his club days, where he got a 100 as well. The way he was batting at the ground yesterday, it looked like he had good skills of cricket as well. He looked pretty good, to be honest,” Piyush Chawla exclusively told Khel Now.

“He was actually asking me a few things about leg spin. What all we do, like how to get the ball to spin and then the wrong one? What are the changes in the grip? So, we were discussing about that,” Chawla added.

“It was a good experience because we all know Gary, who is a legend footballer and then he is coming to India and discussing with him about football, about cricket,” Chawla said in his parting notes.

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