Playing South Africa will offer new challenge

Age: 22 Team: England Learning Disability and Yorkshire How much are you looking forward to the upcoming triseries against Australia and South Africa? I’m massively looking forward to it. We’ve got our own home conditions as we’re playing in England this time round. The whole squad has worked really hard over the past two years and over the last winter we have made a lot of improvements. We’re all excited about the tournament; while some of us are nervous, we also know that South Africa and Australia will be strong outfits. We know that if we play our best, we’ll come out on top. I’ve never played against South Africa – I believe only two other players in the squad have. It will be an extra large challenge, but I’m looking forward to it. What are your hopes for the tri-series? It would be very special to win a third series in a row. Out of the 15-strong squad, I think only four haven’t played an international game yet, but two of them were on the previous tour. So we’re actually quite an experienced side for the tour which hasn’t been the case for a while. When do you produce your best cricket? Last year I played a big part in saving my team (Clumber Park 1st XI) from relegation – where I took five wickets in one match which spared us from going down. When the pressure’s on, that’s when I usually bowl my best – I’ll back myself under pressure and hopefully I can emulate some of that form for England. There’s been a couple of games this season already where I’ve played for my club and we’ve been getting absolutely hammered, the captain will bring me on and I manage to bowl really well under pressure when it’s needed. How long have you been involved with the England Learning Disability team? I made my debut two years ago when the series was in Australia, which was fantastic. We haven’t had the teams picked yet but I’m hoping to play more games this time round. Playing in the 2015 series was a good experience and it was a real eye opener because I was going to the training sessions and feeling fit, but I was rotated in for someone else in the first team, who ended up taking seven wickets one game. This isn’t the sort of thing that happens often, so it was still pretty special for the team. What does it mean to you to play for England? It doesn’t get any better than playing for your country, especially given the fact that it’s on home soil and in front of a home crowd. I know my club will miss me for certain games over the summer, but a lot of my club teammates are going to come up to watch, as well as a few from Yorkshire. It will be hugely motivating for them to come and watch too. I think playing in front of a home crowd is good, but as a squad we don’t want to get carried away by thinking that playing in our country will be easy. The last thing we want is to be overconfident and let complacency creep in.