NOBODY better typifies Sussex’s homespun philosophy of modest self-improvement than Mike Yardy. In 2000, when he graduated from the youth ranks at Hove, Sussex finished bottom of the County Championship. Six years on, they have secured their second championship pennant in four years and have done the double in the process. Meanwhile Yardy, 25, has transformed himself from a stodgy, struggling left-hander into a heavy-scoring allrounder and is heading to the Champions Trophy with England’s one-day squad.

Beyond the smile and the guile of Mushtaq Ahmed (and a ton of wickets) lies a core of modest self-belief and energetic determination epitomised by Yardy. “You have to be a certain type of character to play for Sussex,” says Yardy, who has been in the county’s system since the under-10s. “We know we’re not a Lancashire or Surrey who can spend a lot of money. So it’s about homegrown players and carefully selected others.”

He had only a walk-on part in 2003 when Sussex won their maiden title. two years ago his embryonic career was going nowhere. He knew he needed to change. The question was what and how. His “road to Damascus” moment came one day in the nets in 2004, preparing for a second XI match with Peter Moores, the then Sussex coach who is now director of the England Academy. Yardy had fallen victim to the left-hander’s disease of “falling over”: his head moved to the off side, leaving him off balance and vulnerable to leg-before. Moores suggested that he open his stance.

“Mike was going through a bad time,” recalls Moores. “I suggested that he have a look at someone like Andrew Strauss, who moves across his crease a little bit. He immediately tried the movement he does now with two big strides and he smashed the next ball like a tracer out of the net. He scored a hundred in the second-team game and hasn’t looked back.”

Yardy returned to the first team for the final game of the season against Surrey and made a century, a feat he repeated against the same opposition in the first match of 2005. He hit 1,520 first-class runs last year and earned a spot on the England A tour to the Caribbean. Yardy says he lost confidence; Moores says he put too much pressure on himself.

Either way, he returned to England needing “to show people I wasn’t a one-season wonder”. He has done that and more, averaging 50 with the bat in the championship and making his England one-day debut.

It is his bowling rather than his batting that has earned him higher honours. He started out as a left-arm seamer, but, in common with Ashley Giles and Monty Panesar, he switched to spin. He bowls more quickly than most, with changes of pace that suit the one-day game.

There is a touch of the Paul Collingwoods about Yardy’s understated, determination. Whatever happened to him?

John Stern is editor of The Wisden Cricketer