Steven de Bruin

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We began the day today with another early session of yoga, which commenced at 7:15. The entire group have thoroughly enjoyed these sessions but many have found the early mornings really hard. Today we were missing one person as Zeeshan (Bashir) was not well so he stayed in bed to the annoyance of several of the squad!!!. After breakfast we had a great session with John Abrahams who is the ECB National Academy Assistant coach. John also coached the ECB U17 side that we played three one-day games against earlier in the program. This was a great session that worked on our batting especially when playing against spinners. After lunch we were taken through a hard fielding session by Brían O’Rourke. Brian was really pumped up for this session and smashed some good catches. After this session we all had bruised hands, but at least we didn’t drop many.

Tuesday 5th:

Tuesday began with another Lifestyle Management session with Joce Brooks and then we managed to fit in a centre wicket practice until the rain finished the session halfway through. This was a real shame as rain had previously cancelled the two previous centre wicket sessions as well. In the afternoon we held a squad meeting where we were allowed to meet without the coaches being present. This allowed us to prepare for the tomorrow’s game against the Warwickshire CB U19 team. The entire squad has got on well with each other and the moral is good. We are all looking forward to hopefully winning the last remaining game.

Wednesday 6th:

Today is the day that we have been working hard for in our training sessions over the last week. All the coaches have told us that this two-day game is a great chance to develop each person’s game as the majority of us haven’t played a great deal of games longer than one-day cricket. After a good warm-up with Ros Shuttleworth, our physio for the duration of the game we sat down to prepare for the game. Our captain, Robert Cannon, won the toss and elected to field.

The Warwickshire U19’s had a slow start, but didn’t give their wickets away. We bowled well and didn’t miss any chances that came our way. Hopefully after lunch we will pick up several early wickets. At lunch they had scored 63 runs and lost 1 wicket. When we commenced again their batsmen started to play more positively and the runs came quicker, but they also lost wickets. At a certain stage we had them 133/5. Their number 6 and 7 batsmen were positive right from the start and they had a great partnership of 140 runs. Also their number 8 batsmen got a good 40 so at the close of play Warwickshire U19’s were 333/7.

I think our bowlers did a great job that day. For many of them it was their first experience of two-day cricket. I think it was a special performance by Richie Berrington and Gary Kidd. Richie bowled 27 overs as a pace bowler and took 2 or 3 wickets. Gary bowled more then 30 overs and was very economical.

Thursday 7th:

After our warm-up Warwickshire told us that they had declared, so it was now our turn to bat. Kasim Farid and I opened the batting. Hopefully I could help the boys get our first win under our belts. Kas was a bit unlucky and got caught in the second over. This was a disappointment as he has looked good out in the middle every time he has played. James Hall was our number three batsmen and came out looking very positive. After a few good shots he unfortunately got bowled. Robert Rankin was next in and looked very focused. Robert played very sensibly but still scored some quick runs. I struggled a bit in the first session, but as the coaches said it is very important not to give your wicket away in the longer form of the game.

At lunch we were 88/2. Robert and I felt that we did a good job building up a partnership. At lunch Philip Hudson (EDO) spoke to us and told us that it was very important that one of us had to go on and get a big score. When returning the middle we found that the Warwickshire bowlers had come out full of energy and bowled really well. Robert was dismissed after playing a very good innings and scored 45 runs. Number 5 was Lakmal Kasturiarachige from Austria. I had to ask Philip how to spell his name! Lakmal has had a great academy so far and we were all sure that he would score runs again. Only this time Lakky got a decent delivery and was bowled for a duck. He thought it had nipped back of the seam, but both Philip and I informed him that it didn’t move, much to his disappointment. Suddenly our position from 89/2 had moved to 91/4. Next men in was Jim Morgan. Jim Morgan is a very talented batsman from Spain. We didn’t see too much of his talent today because I managed to run him out straight away. At this point it looked like the match was slowly disappearing away from us.

Robert Cannon, our captain, played well and managed to deal with the pressure easily. We slowly built up a good partnership but then Robert was bowled for 25. Robert’s fellow Scotland team mate Richie Berrington also played well and we began another good partnership. At tea we were 170/6. We all believed we were still in with a chance and I wanted to make sure that I was still in when we knocked off the winning runs. After tea Richie and I kept trying to rotate the strike and we brought the score to 210 for 6 with 30 overs remaining. I finally reached my hundred and was so happy to have achieved this target. I had to work hard against a decent bowling attack but still needed to carry on with my innings. Richie lost his wicket and this brought Tarzan (Rajeev Vohra) to the crease.

I told Rajeev to rotate the strike, because we only needed 4 an over to win the game. Rajeev smashed his first ball for four and at that moment I decided to keep quite and just let him play his natural game. This really worked well and Rajeev kept smashing everything for four. I also played some good shots but lost a bit of focus and disappointingly was bowled for 124. A good performance but I should have stayed in to win the match together with Rajeev. The coaches gave me a pat on the back but also stressed about not putting pressure on other batsmen as they then had to come in and score without being able to play themselves in. Rajeev continued to go crazy and demolished the Warwickshire bowlers. He got great support from Gary Kidd. Rajeev got 57 of 51 balls but was out with 10 runs still needed. He was very disappointed with himself but his team was very proud of him.

We still needed 10 runs with Gary and Gavin, our last two batsmen at the crease. It was extremely tense for all involved, except for our two team mates who managed to knock the runs off without looking in any trouble. It was a great moment for all involved and made up for all the early mornings in the yoga sessions!! Warwickshire 333 for 7 were beaten by the ECA 334 for 9.

Gary remained on 23 not out and did a great job again for the team. This win was a great team effort with some good individual performances. After the win we all went to Loughborough town for our fines meeting with fine manager Gareth Mckee taking control of the nights activities. We had a great night and came home pretty late but it was all worth it.

The three weeks were a fantastic experience I will never forget a moment of it. I have learned so much, made new friends and played cricket against the best opposition I have ever played against. The ECC did a great job to organise such a wonderful academy program and I would like to thank all the coaches for their help and assistance. I would especially like to thank Philip Hudson who as European Development Office has worked extremely hard over the last 6 months putting the program together, making travel arrangements for us all and assisting us as a coach for the duration of the academy. It has been a wonderful experience which no doubt will make me a better player now and in the future.