Yorkshire star Matthew Fisher using his early start as a platform for success

Long before the coronavirus outbreak, the talented teenage bowler was exploring ways in which he could continue to sit the same GCSE exams as his peers despite a potential clash with his cricket commitments.

“I thought it might be a tricky situation because I was never not going to play for Yorkshire just because of an exam,” he said.

In June 2013, Fisher broke a 91-year-old record to become the youngest cricketer to play a competitive county game at 15 years and 212 days old when he lined up against Leicestershire in a 40-over match.

He inked his name into the history books, but Fisher also managed to postpone his French oral exam – the achievement his classmates in York arguably envied more.

“Luckily it wasn’t an exam where the answers could have been given away by my mates,” added Fisher. “If it was, it would have been a more difficult situation and I might have had to sit it on the same day and not speak to or see anyone.”

In 2011, Barney Gibson became the youngest cricketer to play first-class cricket in England but retired five years ago aged 19, having never made another appearance. He now works as a recruitment consultant.

The similarities between the pair are clear. They both had links with Leeds United’s academy as youngsters before focusing on cricket. Both made history by making their Yorkshire debuts at 15 and subsequently were tipped for greatness. However, they have followed markedly different paths since.

After bursting onto the scene Fisher was immediately called up to the England Under-19 squad.

“I went to the World Cup as a 16-year-old and the amount of lessons I learned from playing against the best young players in the world was massive,” he said.

Despite his tender age, Fisher excelled and finished as England’s leading wicket taker as they came third in the 2014 tournament.

Ten scalps at an average of 19.40, while going at a miserly four runs an over, was a remarkable return for a player competing against opponents nearly four years his senior.

“I felt it was a standard where I was good enough to hold my own – it was an environment I thrived in,” Fisher recalled. “It was quite intense, but I think as a person I am pretty intense, I think about the game in a lot of ways.”

Fisher has struggled with his hearing since he was a child. He is 95 per cent deaf on his left side but it is not something that phases him.

“The massive positive I tell people is that I usually have a sound night’s sleep,” he said. “If I’m struggling, I just put my good ear down on the pillow and I rarely hear anything!”

Growing up with two older brothers, Fisher matured quicker than those around him. “I struggled at school because I was quite mature for my age and I’d always be hanging around with older people,” he said.

“I remember my mum telling me that, when I was eight or nine, she asked me who I wanted to come round for my birthday party and I said all of my eldest brother’s friends instead of people my age at school.”

The tragic loss of his father, Phil, to bowel cancer aged 53 in July 2012, had a profound effect on a 14-year-old Fisher. Dealing with his bereavement helped him handle the attention generated by a record-breaking debut and the exciting but daunting prospect of signing a professional contract at just 16.

For Fisher it could have been a destructive sequence of events, but for the 22-year-old it was the making of him. “The way that I am now: driven, committed, professional, is definitely because of what I went through then,” he said.

“With the support of my family I went through one of the worst things, made it a positive and it shaped me.”

In April 2015, an 18-year-old Fisher made his first-class debut – just over two weeks after Gibson announced he was walking away from the game.

He revealed that he had wanted to experience life without restrictions and often felt he was missing out on things as he progressed further down the route of professional sport.

“For me giving up Saturday nights out with your mates when you’ve got a game the next day is not a problem - it just doesn’t really interest me,” said Fisher.

“A lot of the time when the music is on during a night out, I can’t really hear people, it’s probably why I only go out every now and again.”

Up to now it has largely been injuries that have prevented Fisher’s development in four-day cricket, his favourite form of the game.

The summer of 2016 was virtually wiped out thanks to a recurring hamstring complaint. Freak accidents, like the dislocated shoulder he suffered last summer diving in the outfield - and the competition for places in a strong Yorkshire bowling group - have restricted him to just 13 first-class appearances.

He now faces new challenges with all players having been furloughed by the county and the chances of any long-form domestic matches being played looking increasingly slim with professional cricket suspended until July 1.

Lucrative international fixtures and the T20 Blast will take priority if a truncated season eventually gets underway, with The Hundred delayed until 2021.

“It’s very frustrating for me because I feel like it’s the best preparation I have had coming into a season,” Fisher said. He had been getting overs in his legs out in Mumbai for a warm weather pre-season camp before the pandemic forced an early return.

“We know it’s not the most important thing but that doesn’t mean it’s not upsetting for us. If we can get any red ball cricket, even if it’s friendlies behind closed doors, I’ll be happy.”

To make matters worse for fast bowlers there is now a debate about whether shining the ball will be permitted when play returns with fears that the customary practice of using saliva could spread Covid-19.

Sussex coach Jason Gillespie, who while in charge of Yorkshire plucked Fisher from the second team and handed him his debut, thinks shining with saliva should be temporarily banned and sweat used instead.

If, by some minor miracle, Fisher is able to don the whites of Yorkshire this summer he could be deprived of one of his most potent weapons.

“I feel like I’ve built up a good skillset with swing and seam movement and I enjoy working a batsman over for a period of time,” he said.

In the meantime, Fisher is spending lockdown in the house he shares with his girlfriend, Tasha.

When he is not keeping himself in shape with the unusual combination of a 25kg dumbbell, a resistance band and Joe Wicks’s YouTube videos, the couple are busy in the kitchen or binging on TV series Killing Eve.