Three years ago, I was sitting in Studio Two of Leeds Student Radio, about to record a sports podcast interviewing Hampshire opening batsman Ali Orr. My co-presenter was Joe Pocklington, the same Joe Pocklington who just last month signed a two-year deal for Nottinghamshire after a great Metro Bank campaign and has written articles for The Cricketer and Wisden.

The all-rounder has enjoyed a meteoric rise over the summer of 2025, from struggling to get a 2^nd XI gig to being Notts’ go-to spin option over their One Day Cup campaign. The 24-year-old is more than just a cricketer, though, with a degree and master’s all the while skippering the Leeds MCCU outfit.

Notts wasn’t even the County that the former Sussex man was targeting as he started the year on the ground staff at Headingly, hoping to pick up a chance in the 2s at Yorkshire.

“I was working on the ground full-time at Headingly and  Weetwood for April and May. I was really struggling to get any second team cricket due to availability and no spots being available at all.”

He was also held up by the fact that he needed to get a heart scan, which is a new law implemented by the ECB to ensure players are fully fit to play.

“I only found out that I needed an eco-cardiogram last minute with the new ECB, which is totally understandable, so my first game wasn’t until late May when he played a t20 for Yorkshire 2s at Weetwood, where obviously I was working.”

The all-rounder impressed, scoring 50 and taking 2fer and afterwards the coach Tom Smith wanted him in on a more regular basis. Turns out it wasn’t just Yorkshire who had their eyes on Pocklington.

“The very next day, Steven Mullaney, the Notts 2s coach, called me saying he wanted to give me a run of games.”

Pocklington ended up being on trial for both counties, “In that second T20 block in May and June I was playing five days a week at least with club cricket and minor counties cricket still on the side too.”

Then, in June, he had to choose who to play for in the red ball format, and he chose Yorkshire.

“That turned out to be a bit of a blessing with the kookaburra ball as my bowling came into the game. I took a pair of 6fers in two games for Yorkshire.”

The Hundred was looming on the horizon, and he was keeping an eye on who was getting selected in the Hundred wild card draft.

“[Notts spinner] Patterson-White got picked up and I thought I’ve got a good chance of a deal here and then a few days later Mick Newell called me and said that I was in for the Metro Bank at Notts.”

The whole thing was incredibly surreal, and all of a sudden, having only played two second team games as a trialist in the past four years since his last first class game at Sussex, Pocklington was back on the county scene.

“I turned up for training just as the Metro Bank was starting, and Monty [Matt Montgomery] had gone to Derby, Calvin [Harrison] had already gone, Patterson-White had gone, Freddy [McCann] had gone, so I turned up to training thinking it would be between me and Farhan Ahmed. I then get to training, and he’s gone to the Originals as an injury replacemen,t so I originally was their fifth spinner, and then in a crazy chain of events, was first choice.”

The all-rounder grabbed his opportunity with both hands, taking 11 wickets with an economy rate of just over 5s whilst also scoring 113 runs at an average of 22, including a breezy 54 off just 41 balls, coming in at 8 against Worcestershire at Sookholme in a game that ended in a tie.

Notts were impressed and offered him a two-year contract. “It came about a week after we were knocked out when Peter Moores returned from the Hundred. He and Mick pulled me aside at training and said we’d like to offer you a two-year deal. It was not what I expected at all, I was very conscious that it might not happen, so I had applied to various other jobs over the summer.”

Pocklington has been proactive; last year, he wrote an article for The Cricketer magazine on the removal of funding from the MCCU pathways, a cause that he feels very strongly about. Pocklington isn’t the only cricketer who has moved into writing, with Cam Steel’s Substack The Great British Service Station showing the talent he has, off the field.

“I’m very conscious that if I had to enter the world of work, my life needed to be together if cricket didn’t work out. Writing was always something I liked doing, but if it was top of my priority list, I don’t know. I was aware I did not have much on my CV apart from an undergrad in economics and politics,  and a master’s in ecological economics. Which in society today isn’t great with people doing internships and volunteering.”

 This balance of creating stability outside of chasing your dream of being a professional sportsperson is something that Pocklington is very aware of.

“I felt I needed to show I had some things on my CV, and I’d love to continue writing to but I also had an assessment center with the National Wealth Centre and they were involved in delivering net zero infrastructure, which was closely related to my MA. They didn’t want me in the end, but it was cool to get through.”

But for now, Pocklington’s stock is only on the rise, and he is fully focused on making his mark at Trent Bridge