By MARTIN SMITH

ESSEX representation at the Cricket World Cup may be thin on the ground, but at least one man already knows he will be actively involved on July 14 at the climax of the six-week tournament.

The county's very own Tony Choat is scoring the final at Lord’s.

The long-serving Essex scorer revealed: “I’m doing three games during the competition, but the greatest honour is being given the final where I hope one of the teams I’ll be scoring will be England.

"But I’ll happily take whoever I get.

"Just to be scoring at the World Cup is something not many people can do, and I’m just honoured that it’s fallen to me this year.

“Essex have been very receptive to it because they recognise it won’t be every county’s scorer who is asked to do Test matches or indeed now to do World Cup matches.

"I think they see it as an honour to let their scorer go to take part in these events – and I’m pleased that they do.”

Choat’s World Cup itinerary starts in Southampton on June 10 with South Africa versus the West Indies, and continues with New Zealand against Pakistan on June 26 when he will need to make an early exit from Essex’s home game with Somerset to get to Edgbaston in time.

It is not his first appearance in the international spotlight.

Choat has scored Test matches at Lord’s against the West Indies in 2009, when Essex's Ravi Bopara and Alastair Cook were playing, and Sri Lanka in 2016.

“People like me, who don’t normally score at Test match grounds," added Choat.

"They have to wait their turn, so when you get one, you nurture it and treasure it.”

That 2009 Test was not his first brush with the player who would become England captain.

“In my early days I remember being chauffeur to a person who is now Sir Alastair Cook,” says Choat.

“His father was taking him to second XI matches and because he only lived five minutes by road from me in Wickham Bishops – I was living in Maldon at the time – I thought it was more logical for me to offer to take him to matches.

"He was too young to have a driving licence of his own.

"His father said, ‘Yes please’, so I became Alastair Cook’s chauffeur.”

The former bank manager fell into scoring almost by accident.

He had been working as a steward for Essex when his friend David Norris invited him to join him in the score-box.

“It was then that I made the biggest mistake of my life,” said Choat, half in jest.

“I went along, just for interest’s sake.

"I sat by David after tea for two nights in a Championship game and that’s how I learnt the basics of scoring.

“No, I didn’t score as a boy.

"I was an innocent.

"I had the idea of perhaps providing emergency cover if anything happened to David.

"John Childs, then second XI manager and coach, asked if I could do a second-team game.

"That expanded and now I’m travelling all over the country with the boys and thoroughly enjoying it.

"But, no, I had no formal training; I’ve taken no exams, I just learnt on the job.”

His Essex debut came in 2001 and he has scored full-time for the first team since the mid-Noughties.

He said: “I have to confess that before I came here to work I had never been to the ground.

"Basically, because of my job, I didn’t have the time.

"It took retirement from my principle occupation to get me down here.

"I don’t know what it’s going to take to get me away!

“When I first started this, I was in my mid-60s and Ann, my wife, asked how long I thought I’d be doing it, and I said, ‘Probably until I’m 70’.

"But I’m afraid that was ten years ago and here I am still doing it.

"I think, like Cookie when he gave up his international career, you know when the time arrives.

"If I get to feel I’m not giving the service to Essex County Cricket Club and its members, I will retire and let somebody younger come in.

"When that will be, I don’t know.”