YORK ace Jack Leaning has revealed how spending last winter playing grade cricket and working with former Australia Test batsman Phil Jaques proved instrumental in him starring for Yorkshire in their recent LV= County Championship title success.

The 21-year-old former England under 19s batsman played Sydney club cricket for Sutherland, where he was under the watchful eye of coach Jaques, his ex-White Rose team-mate.

Although he had more success with the ball than the bat, he returned to Headingley and shone in the Championship and one-day arena.

He scored 465 from ten Championship matches, including four fifties with a best of 99 against Sussex at Arundel in June.

He later scored his maiden professional hundred in a Royal London one-day Cup defeat against Essex at Scarborough, a 99-ball 111 not out.

Leaning has returned to Sutherland this winter, and he told the soon to be released Yorkshire - A Champion Year book: “I had been away with the under-19s, although not on my own.

“I had an idea what it would be like playing in different conditions and different places, but I was keen to go and have a bit of a life experience as well.

“I got a job while I was out there, which was just the usual thing, working in a bar and a bottle shop. I wanted to live a normal life as well as being a cricketer.

“I thought that was fantastic because, as much as it was enjoyable to do that, it made you realise that actually I need to work hard at my game because I don’t want to do that, I want to be a cricketer.

“I only did some part-time work, which was two or three days a week.

“It helped big time because the licensee was a bloke who I played in the first team at Sutherland with. That helped me in getting shifts re-arranged. It might have also helped me get in the team too!

“I’d train Tuesday and Thursday night at the club, which were the squad sessions, and before the sessions I would do at least an hour or so with Jaquesy in the nets. I’d feed him, he’d feed me.

“We’d always have another session away from the squad days.

“That first few weeks when you come back home after being away for six months are pretty important because people are kind of watching you. You’ve almost been off the radar.

“I did really well in Sri Lanka (on pre-season tour). I got a few runs in the intra-squad game and then got a few decent starts in the Twenty20s. Then I got another decent score against some local opposition.

“That helps your confidence early doors. I’d worked on so much whilst I was away, so for that to all fall into place and have some success when I came back, it really gave me a big confidence boost.”

Although Leaning’s 99 and 111 were his standout innings of 2014, another knock crucial to his development was 41 in the first innings of the draw against Nottinghamshire at Headingley, his second match of the season.

He had to face Australia Test bowler Peter Siddle in full flight late on day one and survived.

“It was a massive confidence boost for a young player like me because you’re playing against somebody who not long before has bowled out the best side in your country all winter,” he recalled.

“It’s something I want to do, play against the best in the world and see how I compare. To come through a battle like that…I only made 40 or so, but he didn’t get me out. That was a real success in my eyes.”

Leaning also described the hundred he scored at Scarborough in August, an innings played in front of his mother, as “one of the best feelings of my life”.

While Leaning is currently in Australia, a number of his Yorkshire team-mates returned to pre-season training at Headingley earlier this week.

  •  Yorkshire - A Champion Year is on sale at £30 and can be bought from www.yorkshireccc.com. The book is published by Well Done Media.