VINES IN AS VICS’ NO. 3
GEELONG captain Eamonn Vines was prepared to bide his time in Victoria’s Futures League team.
Then came the tap on the shoulder from coach Andrew McDonald.
“I’m back, I’m batting at three,” Vines declared yesterday.
“My whole pre-season has been based around the Sheffield Shield season, so to be back in the team for the second game is exciting.”
It was a sliding doors moment for Vines, who was all but certain to miss the Round 2 Shield clash against New South Wales after Will Pucovski locked down the final spot in the Victorian top order.
But when Pucovski fell ill on Tuesday, just over a week after blasting a double century against Western Australia, Vines returned to the fold and will play against the Blues at the MCG today.
“I wasn’t even expecting to come to training today (Tuesday) but I got told to come down and now I’m in (the team),” Vines said.
“I knew I was the next player in line. We played a Futures League game two weeks ago in Adelaide and I knew it was me and Puc fighting for a spot.
“It was only yesterday (Tuesday) that I was told he was sick and I was expecting a little bit of a lay-off, just bide my time, but with sport people get injured and sick and things happen, so I’d prepared accordingly and I was ready to go.”
After being overlooked for Round 1, Vines slots into the Victorian team that hammered WA by an innings and 45 runs.
It will be Vines’ first appearance at first-class level this sea- son, having honed his craft at training while his teammates played in the JLT Cup.
The Geelong skipper has worked closely with Victorian batting coach Lachie Stevens, revealing he’d made some minor adjustments to his technique in the off-season.
“I was toiling away because I wanted to maintain what worked last year and make a couple of tweaks here and there,” Vines said.
“A big focus was playing spin. That’s probably been an area that I had to work on, and being in cricket full-time, I’ve had a real opportunity to work on that.”
Vines also opened up his stance to have “better access to the ball”.
“Looking at the footage in the pre-season, I was closing myself off a little bit,” Vines said.
“I wasn’t aware of it until we reviewed the vision, so we went back and worked on it in the pre-season and I’ve probably opened up a little more than usual.
“It was in discussions with Ronnie (McDonald) when decided that would be my first focus point and then we’ve added from there.
“That’s been my only technical change, it’s just been repeating my skill set and my work with spin.”
And while he only has a small sample size of scores this summer, Vines believes he is already reaping the benefits of the alterations.
“I think I am. I’ve been striking the ball really well throughout the off-season and in the practice matches I was scoring and hitting the ball really cleanly,” Vines said.
“When the season started the scores probably haven’t replicated that, but that’s cricket, and week by week I feel I’m improving.”