The road to English cricket for Brian Barnard

But Brian Barnard's route to Cannock Cricket Club has surely been longer and tougher than that of anyone else.

Barnard arrived at Cannock's Chase Park home this week. However, it is a year later than planned due to a horrendous road accident shortly before he was due to leave his native South Africa.

Not only did it cost him a summer of cricket trying to make his name in England, it damn nearly cost him his life.

The 27-year-old, a big-hitting batsman, was driving home from a trophy play-off for his South African First Class side Gauteng when his car careered out of control and went off the road in Johannesburg.

Barnard recalls: "I was in hospital for two months. I was in a coma. I don't remember anything about the crash itself. There was no other car involved.

"I was driving home from the game, we'd drawn and shared the trophy."

That's when the accident happened. Barnard recalls being told, after waking from his coma, how close he was to losing his life.

He remembers: "Another one per cent down and I would have been declared dead.

"There is a scale of one to 15 in terms of brain activity and anything lower than three is judged to be clinically dead. I was on three."

He adds: "My mum was at my bedside telling me to hold on. Luckily I came round."

Incredibly, and against all the odds, Barnard was back playing cricket within months.

Players and officials from Cannock stayed in touch, despite most never having met or spoken to him before the accident.

Many signed a Cannock club shirt which was posted off to South Africa as a gesture of goodwill.

He joked: "Yeah, they told me about that– but I'm still waiting for it to arrive. It's stuck somewhere, but it was a nice thing to do."

When they heard he was playing again, Cannock were back to sign the batsman.

Now it is all about making a bucketful of runs for Cannock, who are aiming to get out of the Staffs Clubs Championship and back into the Birmingham League.

Barnard believes he has what it takes to make the step-up in county cricket in England.

If he can do that, he will be following in the footsteps of another talented South African who turned out for Cannock – a certain Kevin Pietersen.

Barnard said: "If you're talking about KP, I've heard he was here. In South Africa, the opinion is that he did the right thing coming to England when he was young.

"There are a lot of players my age thinking they should have come over when they were a bit younger. But yes, I'd like to get into first class cricket too."

If Barnard can overcome obstacles like he has done in the past 12 months, no-one at Cannock would begrudge him that chance.