FORMER Woodhouse Grove pupil Dylan Budge has been named Wisden Schools' Cricketer of the Year.

Dylan, who only left the school last year, having been there since the age of three, has played senior cricket for Thackley, Horsforth and Olicanian in the Aire-Wharfe League and has been awarded an Academy contract with Durham County Cricket Club, going on their pre-season training camp to India in February.

When Apperley Bridge-based Dylan moved up from Bronte House to the senior school in 2007, the school's head of cricket, Ian Frost, spotted something rather special about him.

Frost said: "In his first season at under-12s, he averaged over 100, and from then on began playing for Yorkshire Schools. It was at that point we knew he had great potential.”

Dylan was selected to play for North of England Under-15s at the Bunbury Festival and, following that, he made the decision to stop wicket-keeping and focus on his bowling, which Frost believes was crucial to his development.

In 2013, he broke the school batting record, which had been set by Andrew Bairstow in 1994 (elder brother of Yorkshire and England player Jonny) by scoring 949 at an average of 135.57, which put him at the top of the Wisden schoolboy averages.

He scored 101 not out and 153 not out in the school's final two-day match of the season to surpass that total, and his batting became legendary at the school, and many meetings in rooms overlooking the cricket pitch would have to change venues for fear of a ball coming through the window, which they often did when he was at the square!

In 2014, he captained the school side through a record-breaking season, winning all 18 completed matches and lifting the trophy as National Schools' Twenty20 champions.

In the final day of this competition, he scored 61 against Tonbridge and 81 in the final against Millfield.

After leaving school, Dylan has played for Scotland Under-19s, scoring a century on his debut, and he played for MCC Schools against the English Schools' Cricket Association Under-17s last September, scoring 60 at Lord's.

It was not only for Woodhouse Grove, however, that he stacked up some Bradmanesque statistics.

He helped Bradford Schools to win the Lord's Taverners Under-13 Competition for the first time in 2009.

He made 62 not out in the final at Cleckheaton against the Aire-Wharfe League to win the man of the match award, having earlier made 50 against Barnsley, 131 against Nidderdale and 159 not out against York in a semi-final.

Thackley also won the Bradford Junior League's Under-13 Cup final that season against Bradford & Bingley, with Budge having to retire having made an unbeaten 32, and West Yorkshire West to win the Stan Clayton Trophy.

In a citation about his achievement, his school said: "We are incredibly proud of all Dylan has achieved throughout his time at the Grove, and in his year after leaving school.

"He has been a credit to the school on and off the field and we congratulate him on this award and look forward to following his cricket career with keen interest."