As Nottinghamshire return to training following a six-week break, Lyndon James provides the first in a new series of updates giving a glance through the keyhole into his preparations for the 2022 season.
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Winter is Coming
It’s been a surreal seven or so months for me, a time where I have developed a great deal personally. I am still trying to establish myself in the first team with both bat and ball of course, and I feel like I made strides in doing that during the summer, but it is a special time at Nottinghamshire currently. The team has really come together on and off the field, and having come through the system here, that makes me immensely proud.
That’s not to say the break wasn’t welcome when the Yorkshire fixture finished in September. As players, we spend a lot of time in each other’s pockets over the course of the season. The Championship ended in unfortunate circumstances for us as a group, finishing third, but that has only made our desire to compete at the top of the game even stronger. Different players went away during their time off, played golf and generally switched off mentally, but there comes a time when that hunger to be playing again returns.
We have got a clear goal to get ourselves back to Division One this year, and the work starts now in order to achieve that.
"The team has really come together on and off the field, and having come through the system here, that makes me immensely proud."
I think there’s a perception that pre-season is particularly gruelling and uncomfortable. It is exactly that at times, but I really enjoy the challenge of it, too. I had a great strength and conditioning coach in my final few years at school and he really got me into the groove of conditioning myself to be the best I can be. It’s good fun to compete against my teammates and to draw on that competitive edge too, whether that is by running faster or lifting more. Overall, though, it is really about personal development.
If I am the fittest and strongest I can be, I’ll be the best cricketer I can be. It’s as simple as that. During the season, it is about finding a balance because of workload: we want to prime our bodies but also manage our fatigue. Out of season, we have four and a half months to become as robust as we can be both physically and technically. Ultimately, the goal is to keep us out on the pitch, performing well.
Plan of Action
It’ll be a slightly different pre-season for me because of a stress fracture in my back. I’m not able to bowl until December, so the bulk of my work until that point will be on my physical fitness and technical elements with the bat. The process starts with a one-to-one with Pete Moores and Paul Franks to talk about my goals. For me it’ll be about working on my red- and white-ball game.
I am especially keen to advance my skills against the white ball during the winter. Because of the way the Royal London Cup coincided with The Hundred last year, I felt like quite a senior player in our Notts team, but there were things I felt I should have been better at, and across formats I want to widen the range of shots I have available to me against certain bowlers.
"You can’t get on the honours board whilst training in the indoor school. You’ve got the time to make sure your body and game are right"
The good thing about the winter is that you have got so much time. You can’t get on the honours board whilst training in the indoor school. You’ve got the time to make sure your body and game are right, whereas, in the season, you’re under a bit more pressure to correct things immediately.
When it comes to batting, my first thing will be the volume of balls faced, trying to find the rhythm. I don’t need to worry if I can’t find that immediately, or if something doesn’t feel right. As the weeks progress I’ll start to focus on the more technical things.
Fine Margins
With a clear goal to get promoted, we know that we’ll have to sweat the small stuff during the winter. I think that is something that we, as a club, are very good at. It comes down to the culture the coaching staff and leaders create, and the attitude we have to squeezing out all the talent in the side.
Players are given the autonomy to work on their games the way they see fit, both when it comes to their fitness and their skills. I’ll favour a larger workload in the early stages, but other batters may prefer to jump into some technical adjustments as early as possible. Likewise with fitness, some players will prefer running, others will want to cross-train, but it’s about preparing ourselves in the most appropriate way for ourselves.
"All those cold days in wooly hats on the 3G pitches are vindicated when you take a special catch or complete a direct hit."
We will get strong guidance from Liam Price, our Strength and Conditioning Coach, and James Pipe, our Physiotherapist, but, ultimately, we are the ones who will be out on the park in April so we need to get our bodies and minds into the right space.
A good example of our attention to detail is the effort that goes into our fielding in the winter. Before I started working with Mooresy, fielding was considered a bit of a sideline. The attitude to it has changed over the last five years, and you put as much time into that as batting and bowling. I want to be the best fielder, catcher, and thrower I can be.
That starts with the way I move, which is something Anton Roux has been really hot on. All those cold days in wooly hats on the 3G pitches are vindicated when you take a special catch or complete a direct hit.
With the players and support at our disposal, there is potential to do very well in all formats next year. It starts in the winter, in the dark and cold when the season could not seem any further away, but knowing that we’ll come out in April better for it and being aware of what we can achieve through the season, makes all the effort worth it.
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Nottinghamshire membership for the 2022 season is on sale now, with those who join our club bestowed access to all scheduled home domestic cricket alongside a plethora of additional perks.