James was born in Eastbourne on January 10th 1975. He started his education at St. Andrews School, Eastbourne before moving onto Clifton College, Bristol where his cricketing career took off.

His long relationship with Sussex CCC began at the age of 16 when he made his debut in the youth setup from where he progressed to make his first class debut in 1995 aged 20 against Glamorgan.

In 1999 he represented England 'A' and after finishing leading wicket taker in county cricket in 2001 he was selected to tour Zimbabwe with the England One Day team and made his debut on that tour.

In 2003 James made his test debut against South Africa at Trent Bridge and was awarded the Man of the Match award for his second innings spell of 6-34. James has played 4 Test Matches and 11 One Day Internationals.

It has been for his home county of Sussex that James has experienced most of his successes, he has been Vice Captain for 5 years and during the last seven years Sussex have won 6 trophies, the highlights being the two victories in the Championship in 2003 and 2006 and the C&G Final in 2006 where James was awarded Man of the Match award for bowling out Lancashire and securing figures of 5-27.

In 2004 James launched MKK Sports with business partners Roger Myall and Nick Keeley and believes his experiences of playing at the highest standard will allow him to be sure of the quality and the performance required by MKK Sports.