Tim Bresnan pauses and ponders when asked what he might have done had his cricket career not taken off.
“Probably gone into the army or something,” the 29-year-old says. “It’s something else I’m interested in, the travel, exploring and experiencing different things. You get that in cricket, and the forces too.”
Both jobs also require mental fortitude, camaraderie and fighting spirit to cope with battles, personally and professionally. And you can just picture the earnest Bresnan rallying the troops in times of need.
He is frank and endearing. He may not have the lofty status of some within the England ranks, but is one of the few to have been an integral member in Tests, T20 and one-day internationals.
He was there when they won the World T20 title in 2010, the Ashes on home soil a year earlier, and then took the final wicket in the Boxing Day Test at the MCG to seal success against Australia in the return series in 2010-11.
Bresnan was also there when England claimed the famed urn last summer, but were then whitewashed 5-0 Down Under in a stunning reversal of fortune.
In a winter of discontent, they lost to minnows Netherlands last month by 45 runs as their disappointing World T20 challenge ended in embarrassment.
Proud of playing for his country, as well as county Yorkshire, the all-rounder shares the hurt of supporters, but remains ebullient about a future that includes summer Tests with Sri Lanka and India before the ICC World Cup in Australia/New Zealand next year, where the UAE will also compete.
“We have got good players, we have just struggled to string together decent performances recently,” Bresnan explains. “We would bowl well, but then struggle with the bat or vice versa, or we would bat and bowl well, but field badly. We are just letting ourselves down in one facet of the game, we are struggling to get everything right at the same time.
“You are going to be down on confidence when you haven’t won a lot in the winter. And confidence comes from winning.
“We won the Ashes in the summer but it was reported in the Press as though we had lost it. We didn’t play particularly well, they were right about that, but we won 3-1. It’s not like we lost 4-0.
“Sometimes you can’t win. You can’t let it (criticism) get to you either. As players you talk about putting things right, course you do, you don’t want to rock up and lose every week and you do chat about it and how we are going to get better, how we are going to improve and how we are going to win.
“But all those chats are meaningless unless you go and do what you want to do on the field. The attitude of the boys was tremendous, the work ethic was second to none as it’s always been, but we just couldn’t get it right when we needed to.
“We have to look ahead now. Going forward, it can only get better from this winter. At the end of the day we are winning already.”
Changes are expected to help England get back on top with a new coach needed to replace Andy Flower.
Failure in the World T20 has not helped Ashley Giles in his bid for the top job. But Bresnan adds: “You can’t judge a team by Twenty20 and we played some fantastic cricket in that tournament.
“We beat Sri Lanka, the eventual winners, were unlucky against New Zealand, a little but unlucky against South Africa and then got beaten by a Dutch team who played really well on the day. It can go for you and can go against you. In the 2010 World T20 it went massively for us as we stuttered to get through the group, and then bossed it from there to win it.
“I think Ashley Giles is very very good. We probably just didn’t play for him in the way we wanted to. But he’s a very good coach, concise, down to earth, very approachable and he’s everything you need in a coach. Not very technical, but at that level it doesn’t really matter.”
Bresnan, Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 2012, desperately wants to help England rise again after their fall. In his benefit year at Yorkshire – having made his debut at just 16 in a Sunday League game against Kent in 2001 – he is proud of what he has achieved so far, but his ambition has not diminished.
“It’s something you don’t dream of, having a benefit, but aspire to in any professional sport,” he says. “To be playing for 10 years-plus is a great achievement.
“I kind of fell into cricket and it’s the only thing I’ve been good at. “I’ve not got any qualifications, I didn’t struggle at school, but I’m not the sharpest tool in the box, and I had quite a talent for cricket so thought I might as well push it.
“Maybe because falling into cricket as early as I did, you realise it’s hard work.
“You have to work hard to get anywhere and the fact I was quite young and small when I started, probably didn’t have the most natural talent out there in the team, that sort of stuff, I had to work at it and give 100 per cent in every game.
“You feel a lot of pride in what you’ve done, but a bit of embarrassment too, like when you get recognised in the street.
“It won’t all really sink in until I finish I reckon, winning a T20 World Cup, an Ashes here, an Ashes Down Under. If you’d asked me at the start of my career would I take a world tournament and be a double Ashes winner, I’d have snatched your hand off.
“I don’t really set targets, but maybe 100 ODI caps would be nice now, I’m close to that with 84. 100 Test wickets would be nice too, I’m on 72.
“Definitely I’d love to play in another World Cup. You saw the T20 and it’s such a lottery, anyone can beat anyone. But one-day is different, you need to play well for 50 overs, you can’t just have two good overs and win or lose a game.
“We have a good chance of winning it as well, especially in Australia where conditions suit us a lot more than the sub-continent teams.”
And Bresnan wants to be in the frame for the next Ashes in 2015 as he adds: “Everyone wants to play in an Ashes series and it’s the biggest thing in cricket.
“I want to go on for as long as I can really. Doing something I love I’m not in any rush to retire and I also see myself coming back to Yorkshire and giving them something back.
“They’ve been such a big part of my development and with the benefit this year, they’ve rewarded me for my loyalty so it would be nice to help them achieve something too.”
Bresnan’s bites
HEROES
I didn’t watch a lot of cricket when I was young – I was in the garden playing it. But at the start of my career I liked Shaun Pollock, Jacques Kallis, these kind of all-rounders who could bat and bowl. I’ve always said Ian Botham too because he was just ridiculous.
BEST PLAYERS FACED
Batsman, you have got Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting, bowlers would be Shoaib Akhtar and Brett Lee.
BEST MOMENTS
For Yorkshire, it will have to be the 2001 championship win. I didn’t play much, was 12th man most of the time and played some one-dayers, but that was great to experience and be around at the start of my career. For England, the Ashes win Down Under in 2010-11.
SPORTING PASSIONS
Golf, I play off a six/seven handicap. I Iike football too. As a Leeds fan it’s been a shambles, a bit of a soap opera. My football hero was Alan Shearer when he was at Blackburn.
UAE CRICKET
Teams like this need experience and consistency and they will get better. They are playing some good cricket to get to tournaments like the World T20. Nepal played some good cricket there and so did Hong Kong. But it’s about playing well every game to get to that higher level.
