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Zafar Ansari with permission for Varsity<\/p>\n
Growing up surrounded by the sport, Zafar Ansari had the opportunity to represent both Surrey and England during his cricketing career. Having toured the sub-continent in what was Alastair Cook\u2019s last Test series as captain, the following spring Ansari announced the shocking decision to retire from the game at the age of 25. Since then, the former Trinity Hall student has pursued a career in law, currently working at a \u2018Magic Circle\u2019 barristers\u2019 chambers, Blackstone Chambers. I sat down with Ansari to discuss his cricketing career, life at Cambridge, and transitioning into\u00a0law.<\/p>\n
From a young age, Ansari was surrounded by the game as his father, originally from Pakistan, had an avid interest in cricket: \u201cRealistically, he was the reason I became interested in cricket from a very early\u00a0age. Also, the fact that I have an older brother was influential. It was in the family. I would probably say I had an early aptitude for it when I was four or five years old and subsequently enjoyed it.\u201d Ansari\u2019s older brother, Akbar, would later captain Cambridge University, even scoring 193 against Oxford all the way back in 2008.<\/p>\n
Attending Hampton School, an independent all-boys school in south-west London, the former bowling all-arounder kept a healthy balance between his academic and sporting commitments from the early age of 13. Ansari reflected upon the significant, positive impact the school had on shaping him as an all-arounder both on and off the cricket pitch: \u201cBoth academically and in terms of sport, it is an incredible privilege [to go to a school like that], just given the facilities that you have at your disposal, quality of teaching and academic expectation. The culture there was definitely one which drove us to achieve as much as possible academically.\u201d On a sporting front, the former Surrey man discussed the high standards of cricket at the school and the impact Mr Ami Banerjee, the school\u2019s long-standing Director of Cricket, had on his playing career: \u201cCricket was very good when I started there. The first XI included future England cricketer Toby Roland-Jones. A big influence was Mr Banerjee. As a technical batting coach, he was as good as I\u2019ve really had, and was a great mentor, given his experience playing on a professional level in India.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt was always trying to recognise what my priorities were\u201d<\/p>\n
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Having navigated his way through secondary school, Ansari followed in the footsteps of his older brother in attending the University of Cambridge. He studied Geography at Trinity Hall, but would later switch to Politics, Psychology and Sociology in Part II of Tripos. Despite the academic toll that comes with the job, Ansari managed to balance both having a professional contract with Surrey, all while staying on top of his social and academic commitments: \u201cFor me, it was always trying to recognise what my priorities were. At Cambridge, they were my academic work and, secondly, enjoying myself \u2013 developing strong relationships and making the most out of what Cambridge had to offer. Having clarity was so important, especially when you are pulled in different directions. With cricket, in the early season, I would play a few games for Surrey in April\/May but then take a six-week break to focus on exams.\u201d<\/p>\n
Being someone who struggles with consistency and time management, I was somewhat in awe of the discipline required to sustain this routine effectively. Zafar\u2019s advice? \u201cMake sure to have a good support network around you to help. In my case, my brother was at Cambridge during my second and third years there, and he used to come to the gym with me or throw me balls.\u201d He also described the huge benefits of training alongside players from Anglia Ruskin University who were striving to make it in the professional game.<\/p>\n
After graduating from Cambridge, Ansari focused his energy on breaking into the Surrey first team. This is often the first difficult step for a young cricketer in their professional career. Among others, it was clear that former England and Surrey legend, Alec Stewart, helped lay a foundation for his cricketing career to flourish: \u201cHe was very influential in terms of giving me great opportunities to play. There is so much luck as to whether or not you make it as a professional cricketer. You need to have a certain amount of opportunity to play in the 1st XI at a young\u00a0age. Alec was always a champion of mine and found ways of getting me into the side as an all-arounder. This support was, of course, in combination with the head coaches and captains I played under. Alec was also always exemplary when it came to training and driving other cricketing standards. He just comported himself very well.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a personal level, Ansari expressed gratitude towards Stewart when it came to his decision to retire from the game at 25: \u201cHe was very supportive with my decision to stop playing professional cricket. He really understood the reasons for it and didn\u2019t push back.\u201d This is something we will delve more into in a second\u2026<\/p>\n
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\u201cAn existential feeling of \u2018Why am I doing this? \u2019 emerged\u201d<\/p>\n
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A couple of years post-Cambridge, in the winter of 2016, Ansari made his Test debut against Bangladesh, having played his sole ODI against Ireland in the summer of 2015. Despite injury curtailing his tour of the sub-continent, his third and final cap for England\u2019s long-format side was against India \u2013 a match which included legends such as Virat Kohli and Joe Root. On his experience playing with England\u2019s all-time highest-leading Test run scorer, Ansari had nothing but positive things to say about the former England captain: \u201cHe was someone I played with across the England age-groups. I think he is exactly how he comes across publicly, behind closed doors. He\u2019s just a nice guy, not super loud, just a decent, friendly guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The following spring, Ansari announced to the cricketing world that he would be retiring from cricket at the young age of 25. A complete shock. Yet the reasons for the decision were grounded in genuine rationale: \u201cSimply put, I stopped being a cricketer as I\u2019d fallen out of love with life as a professional cricketer. On the one hand, it felt simultaneously insignificant as it is ultimately just a game, while also making you feel that every performance was so important, given it was so public and there was always some degree of objective failure. There was a mismatch between the\u00a0two. An existential feeling of \u2018Why am I doing this? \u2019 emerged.\u201d<\/p>\n
From another perspective, Ansari, ever the all-arounder, felt that there were other things to explore in life: \u201cI was becoming more jealous, rightly or wrongly, of what my friends were doing \u2013 whether working as teachers, academia or in the civil service. I got to the point where I just wanted to do something else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite taking a step back from the professional game, Ansari remains in contact with many of his former Surrey teammates: \u201cI kept up with Ben Foakes after playing, as well as the likes of Sam Curran and Rory Burns. I am on the committee there, so I do have a decent amount of contact with people through that. Hashim Amla was another I remained in occasional contact with.\u201d Ansari described Amla, one of South Africa\u2019s greatest batsmen ever, alongside Kumar Sangakkara and Kevin Pietersen as the best batters he had the opportunity to play with.<\/p>\n
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\u201cBeing a barrister appealed to me as I retained a sense of freedom\u201d<\/p>\n
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Following retirement, Ansari was undecided about what he wanted to\u00a0do. However, the former England left-arm orthodox spinner took the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) on the basis that the law might be an interesting avenue to explore: \u201cAs I started to do that, I found aspects of the law very interesting. Unlike as a cricketer, being a barrister appealed to me as I retained a sense of freedom and was something different to working under a tightly constrained schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ansari, having completed the GDL and then the Bar Professional Training Course with flying colours, secured a pupillage at Blackstone Chambers under the purview of Diya Sen Gupta KC, whom he described as \u201can inspiration\u201d during his law career so far. He has also been recognised by Legal 500 as a \u201crising star\u201d in employment law. In talking about future aspirations, Ansari humbly responded: \u201cAs a barrister, there aren\u2019t really any formal markers of career progression except for eventually, if you\u2019re lucky, becoming a KC, and that is a long way off. Outside of my day job, I am very interested in thinking about how, in my role at Surrey, I can push the club harder around its commitments to promoting equity.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the interview wrapped up, it is safe to say Ansari\u2019s all-around talent indeed extends from the cricket pitch to the courtroom, but a key takeaway was that Ansari\u2019s grounded mentality is the driving force behind everything he does: \u201cFor me, it\u2019s just about trying to be more proficient, confident and better at the things that I do.\u201d<\/p>\n