We moved on from a good week’s training in Coogee to Sydney Central, where our two official warm-up games take place. As soon as we arrived, things started hotting up with a media day full of photo shoots, interviews and bat signings. These days can be quite demanding, but alongside the serious interviews there was some fun stuff too which the boys climbed into.
A highlight was watching Ed Joyce counting backwards in Irish, which will hopefully make its way to the TV screens to start off the World Cup matches. Myself and Balbo (Andy Balbirnie) took part in the ICC quiz and showed our youth with a few poorly answered questions about previous World Cups.
It was great to see the Irish rugby team win their first Six Nations encounter with Italy. Wherever we are in the world we find somewhere to watch the games and in Sydney that was PJ O’Brien’s bar. We are fairly into our rugby and play touch rugby to warm up every day.
There's a good crossover between rugby and cricket players – I played underage cricket with Jordi Murphy and academy players like Jordan Coghlan, who went to an Under-19 World Cup with me. I'm sure one day we'll see the rugby team warming up with a quick game of cricket before a match!
Finest bowlers
That afternoon we had our first session with the addition of
Brett Lee
. Brett is one of the finest bowlers of his time so to have that calibre and expertise can only help our preparation.
In addition, local knowledge of wickets and conditions is invaluable. He worked mainly on the “brains of bowling”, going through different mindsets and being able to read situations to deliver the best possible ball. Our quicks (quick bowlers) picked up plenty of tips and after the first session with him I could visibly see an improvement.
A typical training day for me begins with bowling to the first couple of batsmen, alongside another spinner or net bowler. Having net bowlers provided at each venue at the World Cup is great as our bowlers’ workloads can be managed a lot better and no one has to overbowl. I’ll then have a bat against either our bowlers or the net bowlers. In between, I do my fielding with Carl Hopkinson or whenever I have a slot free.
Hoppo was a great cricketer and anyone who saw him play will tell you he was an outstanding fielder. He’s been great so far, not just with the fielding but with all aspects of our cricket. As a team we pride ourselves on our fielding, so to have him with us for this World Cup will be a big benefit.
On Monday evening, after a good morning session, we had the pleasure of climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It’s a fairly tough climb with some daunting drops, so a few lads opted out, but the rest of us trekked up the giant steel structure.
It is a remarkable view from the top and something I would recommend to anyone passing through Sydney. The excursion was organised for us by Tourism Ireland and we were really grateful for that. They are our sponsor for this World Cup and a very apt one with all the travelling we do. Hopefully we can spread the word for them and help promote tourism in Ireland.
We played our first official World Cup warm-up match against Scotland in a day-night game in Blacktown, which is 20 miles west of Sydney. Day nighters usually start at 2pm, yet the mornings of a day-night game are still relatively busy. We usually have a set breakfast time and morning meetings. This is where we do our pre-game analysis of the opposition.
Formulating a plan
This involves looking at videos of the opposition batsmen and bowlers and formulating a plan for each individual. We already know a lot of the players or have played against them previously, so it’s a case of refreshing and making sure we are all on the same page. Pete Johnston is our assistant coach and analyst.
Pete has been in the job since before the 2007 World Cup, so he has plenty of experience in the role. He compiles all the latest footage and categorises it so that our meetings run as smoothly as possible. Once these are finished, we are ready to head to the ground for the match.
The temperature has cranked up a few degrees from Coogee, so fielding in the heat was hard work. Scotland scored290 in the first innings, which was maybe 20 more than they should have got due to our ill discipline and some sloppy fielding.
A couple of positives came from Andy McBrine and Max Sorensen. The opening partnership with our bowling is going to be key, so it was great to see Max bowling so well. I was grateful to get some overs under my belt and pick up a wicket too.
In the second innings we suffered a collapse, falling to 120 all out. We were disappointed to lose to Scotland by that margin, but thankfully these are warm-up games.
What’s important is how we bounce back tomorrow when we play Bangladesh in our second and final warm-up game.
The last time we played them in an ODI (one-day international) was at the World Cup four years ago.
We lost in what proved to be a key fixture, so we will be hoping to put that right.
After that, we fly to Nelson, New Zealand, for three days’ prep before our first World Cup match against the West Indies. Exciting times.
