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If I get stronger then maybe I can last a season without injury and bowl a few yards quicker. In the midst of his dedicated off-season Onions and his girlfriend of three years finally began living together.

If I'm moody now she doesn't think, 'Oh, what have I done? They asked if anyone suitable could come over for six weeks because one of their fast bowlers had been suspended.

He said, 'Do you fancy it? In an interview they said, 'So this is how far you've come? In Durham's first county match of the season, against Yorkshire, with attention fixed on Michael Vaughan, Onions sealed his comeback with six wickets in the first innings.

Onions, rather than Vaughan, had caught the eye but he dared not hope too hard. I was fast asleep and didn't hear it. But at half-seven my ringtone woke me and I saw there was a message. I thought he might be phoning just to say, 'You're doing well, keep going.

Just remember this moment. Same thing with dad. I was bursting to tell someone so I called Emma and woke her up. But as soon as I told her she was wide awake.

Kane scores hat-trick in big England win. Notifications, social media and more with BBC Sport. Feeling the Draft? How to get into cricket. What has, to put it bluntly, is his bottle. It was said he never scored runs that mattered; never made that vital contribution.

Indeed, all nine of his Test centuries have been scored after a team-mate has already posted three figures. He and Collingwood survived the new ball in which Dale Steyn bowled with huge heart but no luck and were steering England home as the Test reached its mandatory last 15 overs in the final hour. In the second over of that final 15, JP Duminy broke the spell with his off-spin, Collingwood nudging a catch to slip. He had been reprieved by the referral system when he was caught at slip off the first ball he faced, but there was no doubt this time.

Suddenly South Africa sensed their last chance. They had eight men crowded around the bat and Matt Prior gave Duminy his second wicket with a nervy prod outside his off stump. He offers his ODI debut as an example: after bowling against Australia at Emirates Riverside in , Onions took himself for a midgame net to teach himself how to bowl an in-swinger. But I loved the challenge of trying to get better and constantly trying to improve my game.

I found that fascinating. Until you go out and perform and prove to yourself that you can go out on the field and be trusted by your captain to win games, you never know. It probably took me a little bit longer to perform at that level.

I remember going into a game against Somerset before I got called up by England — it was on Sky and I took six wickets in the first innings.

I bowled beautifully, but I still never ever thought that I would be good enough to play for England. Onions gets his hands on the third of three County Championship titles with Durham.

He took five wickets in his first Test innings against West Indies, while he was at the crease at the end of two famous, last-gasp draws in South Africa. During the Edgbaston Ashes Test in , he dismissed Shane Watson and Hussey with the first two deliveries of the second day in a spell that transcended a rain-ruined game. As a snapshot, it was prime Onions: bustling to the crease, tight into the stumps on delivery, good pace with movement off the seam.

Everything had clicked on the biggest stage of all, having been handed the first over of the day by Strauss ahead of James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Andrew Flintoff. In my mind, that was when I believed I was good enough to do it. Four Tests later, however, a serious back problem in threatened to end his career in its prime. And after a two-year absence, he returned to the fold in , taking four wickets against West Indies. That Test represented a career-high — vindication for putting himself through a physical and emotional recovery battle, emerging from it still with the drive to go again.

In the aftermath to the injury, he lost the central contract he had worked so hard to earn only 12 months earlier.