Cricket’s in my blood, it’s in my veins,” says England seamer James Dixon with a broad smile across his face. Hailing from Southport, Merseyside, Dixon has been a stalwart of English deaf cricket for the last two decades. Now 39, he is seemingly getting better with age, earlier this summer finishing as England’s leading wicket-taker in the Mixed Disability series victory over India.

“I took five wickets on debut and finished the series with 10 wickets in three matches,” Dixon tells WCM. “I’d have liked to have played more games, but it’s the coach’s decision at the end of the day. Maybe I’m too old now for a seven-match series!”

Dixon came into the team for the fourth match at Worcester and helped England to a 73-run win and 3-1 lead in the series with a dreamy return of 5-11 from four overs in his first outing for the Mixed Disability side.

“I’d played against India’s deaf side before so already knew some of the batters and how to bowl at them. I knew their strengths and their weaknesses and that gave me a lot of confidence that I’d perform.” The wicket of Sai Akash, Player of the Series when England Deaf Men and India Deaf Men locked horns last year, was a particular highlight.

It was a second England debut for Dixon, who came into the Mixed Disability set-up last winter. He first pulled on an England shirt back in 2005 at the Deaf World Cup in Lucknow, India, taking 2-7 in a crushing 290-run win over Nepal.

“I had the time of my life,” Dixon recalls fondly. “I was so proud to wear the England cap and have the badge on my chest. I was nervous going into that first match, but what an experience!” That World Cup was an eight-team tournament crammed into 11 days, featuring sides from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Nepal and England.

“We played every day back-to-back,” says Dixon. “There were no rest days in the schedule. By the end of the tournament, some of our players were exhausted.”

Dixon would feature three times for England in the tournament, following up his debut versus Nepal with appearances in the round-robin stage against South Africa and Bangladesh. England beat Australia in the semi-finals before ultimately losing to India by 79 runs. “India were a strong side,” says Dixon. “Their spinners were brilliant in their home conditions, I hadn’t seen anything like it before.”

Dixon has been a key figure in English deaf cricket ever since. He toured South Africa in 2013, played in the Deaf International Cricket Council tournament in the UAE in 2016 and was part of the side that won the Deaf Ashes for the first time in Brisbane in 2022, taking the eight-game series 6-2.

He was born deaf, using British Sign Language (BSL) as his main mode of communication, and has to be adaptable and find ways of communicating with people who don’t use BSL, particularly in cricket settings.

“It can be tough on the field, but we find ways to make it work,” he explains. “Sometimes I feel a little left out in a team huddle or in the changing room, but my teammates try their best to include me. When I’m batting I have a hand signal that means ‘yes’ and one that means ‘no’. I’ll also shout to try and make it clearer.”

Dixon has played the majority of his cricket in hearing environments, from his first taste of the game in the back garden playing with his cricket-obsessed family as a four-year-old to competing for Lancashire’s D40 side and turning out for Sefton Park in the Liverpool & District Competition. He also represents MCC, featuring in a historic match at Lord’s against an ECB Chair’s Disability XI last year, and was the leading wicket-taker on the club’s tour to Portugal back in May.

Despite often finding himself as the only deaf person on the field, he opts to play cricket without hearing aids. “It helps me focus more,” he says. “If I have my hearing aids in, it can be distracting; the sound of the crowd, barking dogs, passing traffic, etc. When I don’t have them in, I can stand at the top of my mark completely locked in and set on my target.”

During his time in the game, Dixon has seen deaf cricket, and disability cricket as a whole, go from strength to strength. He describes the introduction of the Disability Premier League (DPL) – a tournament in which he’s the all-time leading wicket-taker, boasting 35 scalps since its inception and helping Tridents to the inaugural title in 2022 – as a huge boost in terms of exposure and quality.

“The standard of the DPL has really improved since its first season,” he says. “In the first year, it was a little mixed, but now the squads are strong and the level is high and it’s only going to be good for the game.”

Dixon’s performances for England, Lancashire (for whom he was Player of the Match in the D40 final against Hampshire in August) and in the DPL saw him named the Lord’s Taverners Disability Cricketer of the Year for 2025, receiving his award from Chris Woakes at the Cricket Media Club dinner at The Oval in October.

“This award makes me very proud of myself and the life I’ve had in cricket – representing England for 20 years,” he said upon receiving the award. “I hope Bill Higginson MBE, who was instrumental in the introduction of disability cricket and sadly passed away one week after the D40 final I played in this summer, would have been proud that I’ve received this award. Having this award will help show young children with a disability that there can be recognition for you, and it’s nice to have an influence on them as a role model.”