With competitive cricket now just around the corner, Nottinghamshire’s players will be eyeing the visit of Surrey to Trent Bridge on Sunday 10 April with ever-increasing focus.
Now approaching the end of the winter training cycle, all-rounder Will Gidman has celebrated the hard work from both players and coaching staff alike in recent months.
“It’s been a great winter, the lads have trained hard and Ross [Herridge, Nottinghamshire’s Strength & Conditioning Coach] has worked incredibly hard with us,” said Gidman.
“Pre-Christmas there’s a heavy focus on fitness, but now, in the new year more cricket works its way into the schedule.
“We do some specific batting sessions, which is always good fun – it gave me a chance to branch out and try new things, it’s a good time of year to work on a few new things whilst revisiting techniques that have worked for you as a player.
“The bowling intensity starts to work its way up, and there’s fielding to be done too.”
After a first season in which fierce competition kept Gidman from a consistent run in Nottinghamshire’s team, the 30-year-old has opted to make changes to his game ahead of the new campaign.
“There are things about my bowling that might have needed a bit of work. Personally, at the end of the last year I realised what standards I need to be hitting in order to play at Trent Bridge, especially in one day cricket.
“There have been one or two tweaks, I’ve been working quite closely with Andy Pick on a couple of things, nothing major. Those little bits of work seem to be going well at the moment.”
While Gidman’s work on his bowling has been a case of refining and tweaking his technique, it appears that there’s been a shift in focus for his batting.
With white ball cricket ever-increasing in its prominence, Gidman has looked to innovate as much as refine his work with the bat, a challenge it appears he’s relishing.
“It’s an exciting time of year to try new things,” said Gidman.
“When you’re training indoors there’s no point in hitting underarm throws at this stage of the year, you can do that in March. Now it’s a case of branching out and expanding yourself as a player, rather than becoming better at the things you’re already good at.
“Cricket is going 360 degrees, especially when it comes to batting, it's so multidimensional that you have to practice these things and it’s a lot of fun doing it.”
Ahead of Nottinghamshire’s full pre-season tour to Barbados in March, the Club’s bowlers are scheduled to travel to Dubai later this month for a ten-day camp. For Gidman, it’ll serve as a good barometer to measure his progress, and provide a much-needed period of outdoor practice ahead of the season.
“The lads can’t wait. We’ve got to a point in our schedule where we’re ready for it,” he said.
“There are two or three of us who feel a little ahead of schedule and we’re ready for the Dubai trip, there are some excited boys in the gym & indoor school.
“There’s nothing like bowling outdoors. You can bowl as much as you like indoors but nothing can compare to bowling outdoors.”
The 2015 season saw dramatic last-gasp four day victories, thrilling limited-overs contests and an historic Investec Ashes Test, all in the unique surroundings of Trent Bridge.
Next season, we’d wager, will be no less enthralling and frankly we’d hate for you to miss out.