IT promises to be a very busy summer for Hampshire captain Jimmy Adams.

He is preparing for tomorrow night’s launch of his benefit year as well as his first full season as captain in division one of the County Championship, when we meet at an overcast Ageas Bowl.

But he already knows his 2015 highlight will not come on the field or relate to his burgeoning social calendar.

The 34-year-old is due to become a dad for the second time at the beginning of May.

Suffice to say, Hampshire may be without their captain when they play one of their biggest games of the season, the four-day match away to Yorkshire from May 10-13.

“When I told my wife, Donna, we’re up at Headingley that week, she said ‘No you’re not!’ “She’d probably like me around for at least part of it – not that I’ll be much use!”

It is 13 years since Jimmy made his Hampshire debut but as he looks forward to a momentous year it is a good time to reflect on a cricketing life that began on the outskirts of Winchester when he was still in nappies.

“Dad would have had a bat ready as soon as I could walk! He’s already got a signature bat for my [one-year-old] son Jonah, who runs around bashing things with it – he hasn’t hit a ball yet!”

Jimmy and his family live in Twyford, a six-hit from the school where he learnt cricket’s rudimentaries under the tutelage of former Hampshire wicketkeeper Bob Stephenson.

He is now one of Hampshire’s most prolific batsmen of all-time.

Schoolboy hero Jimmy passed the landmark of 10,000 first-class runs for the county last season, becoming the first batsman with a five-figure aggregate for Hampshire since his schoolboy hero Robin Smith.

With more than 5,000 limited-overs runs to his name, he is already one of Hampshire’s top 20 all-time leading run scorers, despite being a late developer.

The oldest of four children, he jokes that he was not even the best batsman in his own family.

“Dad’s always loved cricket so having a brother a year younger meant that cricket was a no-brainer.

“I always had a play mate and we were lucky to have the space to play a decent game as long as we didn’t destroy mum’s bushes.

“I’d have a team of left-handers against Ben’s right-handed XI.

“Ben could do a really good impression of Judgie but I was allowed one non-leftie so we could both have Robin on our team. He was the big wicket!

“Dad’s got old video footage of us batting. I was gangly, uncoordinated and terribly awkward but Ben looked a proper batsman at 11 years old.

“[Hampshire batting coach] Tony Middleton always gives me stick saying I’m not even the best player in my family!

“But Ben got to 15 or 16 and decided cricket wasn’t going to be his path.

“He’s now making wine in the south of France.”

Hampshire’s Lord’s finals of 1988, 1991 and 1992 and Robin Smith’s development into an England star were significant moments in Jimmy’s early development.

“Cricket was always on the TV so watching Hampshire in the one-day stuff was the first spark and Robin’s international debut was an extra boost.

“My first proper bat was a Gunn & Moore Scoremaster but as soon as Judgie had the Gray Nicholls Elite we were hounding dad for one.

“I remember being so jealous of my brother when he got one first.”

Within a decade of those halcyon days, Adams made his first-class Hampshire debut in the same team as his schoolboy hero, against Sussex at Hove in September 2002.

“I was in the middle when he walked out to bat. It was really surreal.

“I’d had Robin Smith posters on my wall, the t-shirts, the bats and then he came out asking me what was going on.

“I thought ‘hold on a sec, it shouldn’t be this way round, surely!’ “We didn’t bat together very long but batting with someone I’d idolised was a really special moment.”

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It was three years after Smith’s retirement, under the captaincy of Shane Warne in June 2006, that Adams scored his first County Championship century – a magnificent 168 not out against Yorkshire at Headingley.

“I took ages with each step up,” he continues. “I’ve never adapted particularly quickly.

“I remember thinking ‘wowzers’ when I played my first second-team game – I was lbw before I’d moved!

“Tony and the guys obviously saw something worth sticking with, but my first two years on the staff were pretty disappointing.

“I remember Tony having a chat with me at the end of my second year and suggesting, in a nice way, that maybe I should go to university. It was the best move for me.”

Adams had graduated in human biology from Loughborough University by the time he scored the first of his 22 Hampshire hundreds.

His Headingley heroics ensured the county chased down 404 – which remains the county’s third-highest, match-winning fourth-innings total – against an attack including Australia’s Jason Gillespie and a young Tim Bresnan.

“That was a seminal moment,” he says.

“I’d scored a first-class hundred previously, but to get one for Hampshire was something I’d always dreamt of and to do so against a strong attack on a Test ground, under Warne in that game scenario, ticked a lot of boxes.

“I suppose part of it was me feeling comfortable in the dressing room in terms of meriting a spot.

“I needed to prove that to myself so that sticks out a huge amount.

“But the club showed a lot of patience and that’s always stuck in my mind.

“Not everyone is lucky to get that support. I probably wouldn’t have been given the same opportunity now, guys are flying at 15.

“They don’t look out of their depth, they’re just missing a few games to get a feel for it.

“But I found the next game just as hard.”

Adams feared the axe after averaging 17 from seven Championship matches in 2008.

“I had a really poor year and thought that was probably it if there was a repeat.

“I probably catastrophied it at the time but cricket can be a draining game and there are times when you don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel and everything’s bloody hard.

“I remember the horrible time at the end of a number of seasons when half a dozen of you are out of contract and at least two or three of you aren’t going to be lucky.

“That was the worst feeling. I’ve been fortunate but it didn’t feel particularly good seeing someone who I’ve thought had done better than me, or potentially might be a better player, not being kept on.

“It was a bit of a lottery. In my first or second year we signed [former Dorset batsman] Andy Sexton, whose second team record was better than mine.

“He made his debut before I did and was a left-handed opening bat, so we were after the same spot. But he was released and I was kept on. I remember feeling quite awkward. That was it for him. Fortunately I haven’t had to feel that side of it. Not yet, anyway!

“It’s even more brutal now with much smaller staffs. When I joined, nearly everyone in the second team was a contracted player. Now we have second teams with no contracted players.”

It was during the winter of 2008/09, following the worst season of his Hampshire career, that Adams developed a new dimension with the help of Neil ‘Noddy’ Holder – coach to the likes of Justin Langer and Mike Hussey – in Perth.

“I was midway through a two-year contract so I really knuckled down that winter,” he said.

Jimmy’s shorter-format skills improved significantly.

Pre-2009, he had scored 531 limited-overs runs. Since that winter, he has added another 4,641. “One-day cricket allowed me to play with a bit of freedom,” he said. “I’m sure people watching me in four-day cricket found it a bit tedious at times but when you’re grinding it out you want to bring out your inner Brian Lara,” he continues, grinning.

“You have to know your limitations but one-day cricket allowed me to explore and that was a huge release.

“It also rekindled the enjoyment side. I looked a bit funny jumping around with my backlifts and stuff but it seemed to work.

“Noddy’s approach and the backing from Chalks [Hampshire director of cricket Giles White] was important. I could play my shots and give things a crack.”

Adams made a vital 55 in the 2009 Lord’s final win against Sussex and a record aggregate of 668, including two centuries, as Hampshire won their first T20 title a year later.

He has also scored five first-class double centuries, the pick of them being the first of his four as captain (207 at Taunton in 2011).

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But with the exception of his Headingley heroics it is not his three-figure scores that he is most proud of. “My most memorable innings were those that proved a point to myself,” he explains.

“So as well as Headingley my semi-final knock [78] at Old Trafford in 2009 stands out.

“Knowing I was contributing and starting to be a cog in the team was a huge thing.

“Another big point-prover was the T20 game against Somerset where we got done for the pitch.”

Terror track Hampshire were bowled out for 97 on a terror track during that 2010 group match. But Adams made 61.

“It was a pretty grim wicket up and I was on the chopping block as I’d played two games without getting any runs and KP was coming back for the following game.

“So to get 60-odd on a tough wicket and, this sounds bad, after we had struggled as a team was a point-prover to myself.”

One of Adams’ biggest disappointments was as captain of the team that lost the 2013 CB40 semi-final at home to Glamorgan, Dimi Mascarenhas’s last game for the county.

“That was a shocker,” he admits. “I felt terrible because if anyone deserved to go out with a Lord’s final it was Dim, but it wasn’t to be.

“We made a really bad call on the toss [Hampshire batted second on a gloomy September afternoon] and that still doesn’t sit well.”

That was the lowest point in Adams’ Hampshire career since the annus horribilis of 2003. “That period before Warney arrived was the only time I heard any negativity from Hampshire supporters.

“We couldn’t buy a result and I remember being booed off after losing to Derby by an innings in two days.

“There’s nothing worse when your own supporters are on your back.”

Those days are long gone. Hampshire’s promotion under Adams last season, as division two champions, was their fifth trophy in as many seasons. The county’s first official Hampshire-born captain since the war is the most popular of beneficiaries.

Jimmy Adams remembers Hampshire’s Shane Warne years in this weekend’s Sports Pink, and reveals his most emotional Hampshire match in tomorrow’s Daily Echo.