2008 And Beyond...

Hi Everyone,

I am a 17 year old young cricketer from Lincoln. I have just recently joined the Cricket World team and am going to write a blog about my cricketing progress in 2008. I am aspiring to be a professional cricketer as it is my life long ambition. Over the years I have represented Lincolnshire in every age group, trained with Nottinghamshire Academy and played club cricket for Bracebridge Heath in Lincolnshire who have won the ECB Premier League for the last six years running.

Last year I was the leading run scorer in the whole of Bracebridge Heath Cricket Club scoring 1169 runs for them, including three centuries, two against sides in the Nottinghamshire Premier league and the other was a slogging session in which I hit 149 not out off 93 balls.

In all forms of cricket including county and school matches I was close to 2000 runs in the season with one more century to add and 15 50s.

For the county my top score was 83 which is really disappointing for me as I got starts in every game but never reached those three figures. It was great to play two day cricket for the second year running and have 102 overs to bat in a day. It made me realise again that I want to spend my days playing on the cricket field and trying to entertain.

I am a right handed opening batsman by trade, but when I have had to adapt when playing for Bracebridge Heath firsts I have been batting in the middle order and giving the ball a good hit near the end of an innings which is what I like to do. I love to hit boundaries all of the time. This in fact is one of my weaknesses as I always look to get bat on ball from early on so I will need to be more patient when it comes to the longer format of cricket in the 2008 season.

On the downside my bowling was a complete shambles this year. At the end of the 2007 season I spoke with my coach Mark Fell (ex-Nottinghamshire player and Lincolnshire first team manager) about what I should do. We decided that I was going to turn into an off-spinner over the winter as I would prove much more valuable to a team as a top order batsman who bowls off-spin, rather than sending down some wayward seamers.

I started winter nets about a month after the season had finished. I have been going down to the nets with a friend and team mate Brett Houston who has helped me with my bowling. I really hated college when I was there and in between my time when I was not at college or employed then I was practising my cricket. Batting-wise I have been focusing on the short ball as because I am now looking to get a second team contract with a first class county. I will have to be able to take a bombardment of short stuff. Unfortunately the first ball of this session did hit me on the shoulder and from then on I think I have taken at least four or five hits a session. Its got to the point where I think a bit of front foot work would be nice to help my battered upper body!

Unfortunately, I have not trained since just before Christmas when I was netting with the Lincolnshire first team. Now as I work for Cricket World I am not netting all hours of the day. But I will be looking forward to getting more evening sessions in after work so that I can try and fulfil my dream of being a professional cricketer and more importantly, try out my new Gray Nicolls Nitro Pro Performance bat!

Cheers,

Pierce