Wells still aiming at emulating Dad
SECOND XI
SUSSEX’S Luke Wells believes he is in the form of his life after lighting up the Second XI Championship match against Surrey this week by smashing his second double century of the season.
Following his 258-run knock against Durham in May, Wells plundered 201 off 211 deliveries for the seconds in the three-day draw.
The left-hander accumulated 23 fours and eight sixes in the blistering knock at the Central County Ground and is hopeful his form will continue for the remainder of the campaign.
He said: “I feel in a much better space than I have been in recent years, so now it’s a chance to kick on. I feel that I can go through the gears instead of staying at the same rate.
“I’m in the form of my life and feel like once I get into the 30s or 40s, I can get a big innings. But I’m taking nothing for granted and must be as consistent as possible in getting those scores together.
“I think there’s been a slight technical change – I’ve been relaxing my front elbow and getting forward but other than that it’s mainly just allowing myself to be freer, not worrying as much about my wicket and allowing myself to play these shots, whereas in the past I might’ve stopped myself.”
Wells’ father Alan has a single England Test cap to his name and the Sussex batsman would love to replicate his achievement.
The 26-year-old said: “I have tremendous ambition to play at the highest level and to really bang together a lot of consistent scores and that’s what I’m trying to focus on at the moment.
“Taking one innings at a time and getting as ruthless as possible. Hopefully if I put the scores together then things might happen in the future but for the moment I need to just focus on the here and now.
“I have ambition to do that [play for England] but the only way I can do that is to be as consistent as possible.
“I have a target in mind for runs but I don’t want to limit myself, I’ve done that in the past and set myself a target of 1000 runs and it’s become quite a big figure and then I think about it too much instead of concentrating on my task in the middle, so I don’t want to set myself a limit.”