Before he gets on the Sussex team coach for Lord's tomorrow morning Mike Yardy might be advised to nip down to the paper shop and invest in a few lottery tickets.

If anyone is going to scoop the jackpot this week it's got to be him.

In the last few days he has captained the county for the first time and been chosen in his first England squad. Now there is the prospect of playing a starring role in Sussex's first appearance in a Lord's final for 13 years.

Even his beloved West Ham were top of the Premiership for a few hours on Wednesday.

Victory over Lancashire tomorrow would round the week off perfectly. Not that there will be much opportunity to celebrate or, if the worst happens, commiserate with his team-mates afterwards.

Instead he will be heading off to Bristol to begin the next phase of a career which he has transformed in the last two years.

Yardy, 25, is a product of the Sussex youth system but just over two years ago he would have rated his chances of winning England recognition as about as high as playing up front for the Hammers.

Although he had been on the staff since 2000, by 2004 his average was less than 30 and he was not a first choice. It would not be unkind to say he had a reputation as a blocker while his occasional left-arm seamers were not getting him noticed much either. A lot of people at Hove wondered whether he would make it.

Yardy had reached a crossroads and when Sussex signed Ian Ward to strengthen the Championship-winning squad he accepted that if he was going to get his career back on track it would have to be in the second team.

It could have finished him but Yardy knuckled down in that summer of 2004.

He made some technical adjustments, the most obvious of which has left him with an unusual stance which sees him line up the ball by shuffling across from a yard outside leg stump.

Mark Robinson, who coached the seconds that year, monitored his development closely.

He said: "Yards was always highly thought of but he realised that the tools he had as a cricketer were not good enough. He needed to change to make his move and that summer he was magnificent because he simply concentrated on his own game and put all other distractions to one side."

He got his chance in the final Championship game against Surrey when Ward pulled out through illness and celebrated with 115 - his maiden first-class hundred.

He has not looked back.

He started 2005 with successive centuries followed by 257 against Bangladesh. He was top of the averages and even when the Daily Mail uncharitably headlined an article about him Michael Who?' it could not shake him off course.

In the same game, Yardy produced another career-best with the ball when he took 5- 83, not with those inoffensive seamers but left-arm spin.

Encouraged by Robinson and his predecessor Peter Moores in winter nets, he had developed an important second facet to his game. Just as importantly he also had the confidence to bowl it.

Last season he scored nearly 1,300 runs and was an ever present in one-day cricket. At Edgbaston a year ago he took 6-27, the third best figures by a Sussex bowler in their limited overs history.

Recognition of the way his game had kicked on came with selection for the England Academy and A tour to West Indies. For Yardy, it was a steep and occasionally painful learning curve.

Moores, who was in charge of the Academy, felt he put too much pressure on himself to perform in the Caribbean with predictable results. "It was a tough one for Mike," he said. "He'd had no experience of England and very little of touring itself, he was searching to try to be a model England cricketer.

"But he learnt and that's the most important thing of an experience like that. He had a bit of a hangover at the start of this season but he's kicked on again. He's still progressing and developing into a three-dimensional cricketer.

"He's an intuitive cricketer got a good feel for the game and what is happening and that is important, especially as a bowler because you adjust to different situations."