Geraint Jones’ Blog – 12th April

Last week saw us open up the season with a draw against Yorkshire in the Championship. To be fair, when we headed up there on Wednesday, we didn’t for one minute think we’d get four days of cricket in.

When we got there, they were clearing the snow off the outfield at Headingley, so it was amazing that the game started on time.

To be fair, it was still pretty chilly though for those four days! Our hotel was a bit nippy and it took a while for the heating to kick in. Apparently, Jimmy slept with his hoodie on and body warmer on, it was that cold!

As for the game itself, the batting to start with was fantastic. When you compare it to last year, to get a total like that at the start of the season was great. It was great to see Colesy get his maiden hundred, but the way Keysey and Scotty Newman up the top got their partnership to get us under way was fantastic.

Bowling wise, enough was created for us to win the match. Some dropped catches went down at vital times, which when you lose time to the weather, you need those caught.

The new boys have really settled in well at the Club and the atmosphere around the dressing room has been really good. A lot of fun has been had, but everyone knows that we have to be serious when we step out onto the park.

Mark Davies is the noisiest in the dressing room. Him and Mike Powell have formed a great friendship and they’re the ones leading the banter. Keysey every now and then doing his Michael Jackson dancing has us in stitches too. That’s the way a dressing room should be and we’re really enjoying each others company.

There has been no real rest as the coach got back about 12:30am on Monday morning and it was a case of having to be up bright and early that morning as we had a party for Rhys’ third birthday. There’s no opportunity to be tired when there’s loads of kids running around!

Plenty of Peppa Pig birthday cake was had (which Jen made – and made very well). We had plenty of family around and he got a new trampoline, so he’s had a good bounce around on that. His birthday is actually on Thursday, but with me being away it was the ideal chance to celebrate.

The way the structure is set up this year, we start with a run of Championship games and we are now in Northampton for the next game. We play the games Thursday through to Sunday, have a day off on Monday, go back in to do some training on a Tuesday and then travel on a Wednesday before playing the next game.

At least we’re only playing Championship cricket, so you know where you are and you can get your preparation right based around just the red ball.

Treddy has driven me up here and he’ll come back into the side in place of Riles, who did a good job for us last week. It will be good to have Tred back in the side after being on the England tour and he’ll add that extra bit of experience to the side.

It’s all about taking twenty wickets in these games and I feel with the attack that we’ve got, we’re more than capable of doing that.

Some of the younger guys have found themselves left out of the side and they’re going to have to work really hard to get into the side, but at the same token, those of us that are in the side will have to work hard to keep our places.

It will be a good test of character for those out of the side to see who is prepared to work hard and force their way in. Form will come and go for people and it was interesting to see that Alex Blake and Fabian Cowdrey scored some runs.

They will need to be hitting scores of 150+ if they’re going to be pushing for a place in the first team. If I go back to the days that Treddy and I were in the second team, we knew that big hundreds and taking lots of wickets were our only way into the first team.

The last few years, that hasn’t been the requirement to get a game, so it’s good that we’ve now got competition for places as it should improve the whole squad.

No one is safe and that can only be a good thing for Kent Cricket.

Till the next time.

Geraint