Richard Mann sits down with Sam Northeast to discuss life at Hampshire, a cup final victory at Lord's and his burning England ambitions.
Alastair Cook's retirement has left England with a huge hole to fill in their batting line-up, not only because of his runs at the top of the order but the calm, assured manner in which he accumulated them. When he was at the crease, the England dressing room was generally settled and the collapses that have dogged the side in recent years were often avoided.
His departure leaves England selectors with a real quandary when choosing which batsmen from county cricket to take on the winter tours of Sri Lanka and the West Indies.
As England have found out over the last couple of years, international cricket, and particularly Test cricket, is an unforgiving place with the searches to replace Andrew Strauss and Jonathan Trott proving fruitless.
A host of openers have been tried since Strauss announced his own retirement, with England looking to blood young prospects such as Sam Robson before putting faith in County Championship performances and the likes of Adam Lyth and Mark Stoneman.
In the number three spot, Joe Root has unsuccessfully tried to take up the mantle while James Vince has had a couple of bites of the cherry with Dawid Malan and Ollie Pope both discarded having failed to deliver at number four.
Having been afforded plenty of chances, Vince and Malan, two of the more established batsmen on the county circuit, have seemingly fallen behind Pope in the pecking order and though the latter seems almost certain to make the forthcoming trip to Sri Lanka, his first two Tests this summer highlighted his inexperience and strongly suggested he needs more to time back at Surrey to hone his game and learn the ropes before returning to England colours. He will surely come again, but maybe not right now.
As for Malan, Ed Smith appears to have ended his international career by suggesting his game is not suited to England conditions while Vince, for all that he is a supreme talent, has clearly left his backers in the camp frustrated at the considerable promise he continues to display without producing that defining innings.
Coach Trevor Bayliss is known to be a fan of Vince but he might not be able to convince Smith and fellow selector James Taylor that he is worth persisting with and as such, his Hampshire teammate Sam Northeast deserves an opportunity that he probably should have been given a few years ago.
In the absence of Cook, England would be wise not to flood the side with too many inexperienced youngsters, especially in a batting line-up that has proven desperately flaky in the last 18 months, and with older heads Vince and Malan possibly out of chances, the case for Northeast is most compelling with one sensing that the time is now for a player who has yet to receive the England call despite having been earmarked for international honours for some time now.
As early as 2012, the graceful right-hander, who scores his runs all around the wicket, was being talked about in some corners as a potential England player following an impressive season with the bat for Kent that saw him average 55 in the County Championship.
He then went on to enjoy a strong return in 2014 before the 2015 season saw Northeast amass over 2,000 runs in all competitions. However, despite consistently proving one of the most respected batsmen in the county game, the seemingly inevitable England call-up never arrived.
With the lure of Division One cricket and its potential to enhance his burning England ambitions, Northeast decided to make the big switch from childhood club Kent to Hampshire for the beginning of the 2018 season and it is a move that has already taught the 28-year-old plenty.
Northeast told sportinglife.com: "I've settled in really well at Hampshire, the people there have made me feel so welcome. I think the club has got a really bright future going forward and it's great for me to be a part of.
"I think we've the making of a side that can go places. We've got players like Liam Dawson and James Vince who are in the prime of their careers and throw into the mix a couple of experienced heads like Kyle Abbot and Dale Steyn, that has the makings of a really exciting side.
"Vince [Hampshire captain] is definitely trying to drive a culture where we win things going forward and Hashim Amla is another I have learned greatly from.
"Hashim was brilliant. Just to watch him go about his business and he was brilliant to talk to, his plans about how he would go against different bowlers. He was great.
"And then Dale Steyn, he was a champion bloke who just oozes class. Facing him in the nets wasn't the easiest - he's got great skill - and you can see why he's right at the top of the greatest bowlers of all time. His practice was just so disciplined and he sets the standard of how we want to go about things.
"He wanted to be a part of what we want to achieve at Hampshire and he led that. I was really impressed with him, he's been so good for the club."
It hasn't all been plain sailing, though, with Northeast's early-season push for an England call-up ended when he broke a finger whilst doing fielding practice only days after scoring a sparkling century against subsequent County Championship winners Surrey.
That second innings 129 came in a losing cause but undermined his striking qualities under pressure, something England dearly need in their top order right now, and his ability to dominate the likes of Sam Curran and Jade Dernbach in early April certainly give strength to the argument that he has the game to tame international attacks.
Northeast added: "The injury just came at completely the wrong time, scoring a hundred at The Oval and wanting to kick on from there with such a big summer of Test cricket coming up. I really wanted to put my name in the hat.
"I hoped the injury might be three weeks but I ended needing an operation and being out for over two months."
Nevertheless, he fought back to full fitness to play play a leading role in Hampshire lifting the Royal London One-Day Cup at Lord's back in June, showing real character to make a blistering 75 not out under massive pressure against former club Kent, despite being booed throughout by his former fans.
Such scenes didn't sit well with most neutrals watching but not only did Northeast showcase impressive mental qualities that will surely stand him in good stead in a future international career, his sparkling knock, coupled with his typically classy behaviour throughout the day, won him many supporters.
"I was lucky to come back into a side that was flying in the One-Day Cup and to win my first major trophy was fantastic," he said. "There was a lot of pressure going out there [at Lord's] but winning trophies and pushing my England claims were the reasons I made the move and to win one in my first season at the club was something special."
That calm demeanour and level-headed attitude was something that shone through when we sat down to talk following his participation in the Sky Bet-sponsored Racing To Cricket Charity Day in the aid of The Injured Jockeys Fund.
On the back of finishing a four-day game for Hampshire the previous day, Northeast made the trip to Wormsley Estate and gave up his Sunday to support the fundraising event for the second year running.
Aside from his charitable nature and warm and open personality, Northeast is an impressive young man who clearly understands the game well and it is hard to ignore the hunger he has to pull on an England shirt.
He added: "England have just had a fantastic series win against India and it looks like it's a great team to be a part of. All I can do is score as many runs at possible and hopefully put my name in the hat.
"I'd love to get on a Lions trip this winter, score big runs and look forward. Hopefully at some stage the England call will come."
Duncan Fletcher was one of the first England coaches to select players on personality as well as statistics - Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughan the most obvious examples - and Northeast certainly fits the bill in that regard. A calm head with a shrewd cricket brain, at 28 he is in a good place to understand his game and has spent the summer learning from two greats of the game in Steyn and Amla.
There certainly won't be any 'rabbit in the headlights' stuff if Northeast gets the call. He feels like a safe pair of hands and could provide some much-needed stability to an England batting line-up that can be reckless and brilliant in equal measure.
Nevertheless, Northeast certainly has the numbers with which to state his case - almost 9,000 first-class run at an average close to 40 - and his record in red-ball cricket is already better than that of Vince, Malan and Keaton Jennings. When you consider that trio are already scarred at international level and come with considerable baggage, it is easy to think England should be looking elsewhere while someone like Joe Clarke, who continues to impress, might just find international cricket coming too soon in his development at this stage, as was the case with Pope this summer.
While that broken finger has ensured Northeast hasn't been able to rack up the big numbers that we have become accustomed to, it seems most apparent that he stands up on the biggest stage and in the biggest games.
His crucial innings in the Royal London One-Day Cup was clear illustration of that and in the last few weeks, with Hampshire in a relegation battle in the Division One of the County Championship, Northeast made a crucial first-innings 48 in a low-scoring victory over Worcestershire before registering the top score (53) in the match when helping his side beat Somerset.
With his best form returning just at the right time, the case for Northeast's inclusion on the upcoming tour to Sri Lanka is certainly strong and significantly for England's selectors, his previous experience of batting anywhere from opener to number five in county cricket would offer England valuable flexibility.
With Joe Root having locked himself in at number four and two inexperienced openers likely to make the tour, the vacant number three spot might seem like the obvious spot for the Hampshire man.
For England, Northeast feels like a natural fit.