Gary arrived at Old Trafford as a 20 year old, having grown up in Wakefield and begun his career with his native Yorkshire.

Then Lancashire coach, David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd, saw the talent and potential of him as a young left-arm spin bowler, and signed him in the auspicious surroundings of a motorway service station! Gary made his Lancashire debut the following summer, in 1995. Over the past fourteen seasons, the White Rose’s loss has most certainly been the Red Rose’s gain. Last summer, Gary became only the 30th bowler to take 500 first class wickets for Lancashire, when he dismissed Chris Adams in the County Championship match against Sussex at Old Trafford.

In total, at the start of the 2009 season, Gary has taken 509 first class wickets for the county, together with a further 87 in one day cricket. He has been very successful in Twenty20 cricket, regularly picking up crucial wickets and conceding little over a run a ball – a truly excellent record in a format of the game where run rates of ten an over are regularly seen, and where spin bowlers can often be taken apart by marauding batsmen. Gary’s best season for Lancashire was in 2004, when he took a staggering 72 wickets in the County Championship. This meant he was the most successful English-qualified bowler in the country, with only Pakistan’s Mushtaq Ahmed of Sussex claiming more. Unsurprisingly, he won the club’s ‘Player of the Year’ award for his outstanding summer.

Though picked for the side purely for his spin bowling, Gary has worked hard to improve his batting through his career. In fact, despite often batting at No.11, he has shared in six century stands for Lancashire, including one against his former county at Headingley! Perhaps the pick of these partnerships was last summer, when he put on 160 runs with captain Stuart Law at Hove against reigning- champions Sussex, making a career-best 64 in the process. Gary is still Lancashire’s regular night-watchman, his tight defence trusted to keep out all types of bowling.

In October 2006 in ‘All Out Cricket’, the magazine of the Professional Cricketers Association, Gary was voted as the best county player never to have played for England. In view of the fact that the magazine’s readership are almost exclusively the many hundred professionals playing on the county circuit, to be viewed in that way, by those against whom he has competed for so many years, is a true testament to his talent and dedication.

Gary married Andrea, a Volunteer Co-ordinator for the Lancashire Constabulary, in October 2002. They have a young daughter, Erin, with whom Gary loves to spend every moment he possibly can at their family home in Blackburn. Gary describes Erin’s birth in September 2006 as the proudest moment of his life. There is, though, no truth in the rumour that her first word was ’googly’!

Well known in cricket for his love of rugby league, Gary’s childhood allegiance to Leeds Rhinos RLFC continues to be close to his heart! To start to prepare for a life beyond playing cricket sometime in the future, Gary has begun training to become a physiotherapist.