Gurney ready for Potchefstroom

The Leicestershire players have certainly been put through their paces since the 2009 season finished and paceman Harry Gurney thinks everyone is feeling the benefit of that.

After a month off, the lads reported back in early November to be put through their paces by the coaching staff and new Strength and Conditioning Coach Pete McKnight.

This work has included specific cricket skills as well as general strength and fitness work and Gurney said it has been extremely useful both individually and collectively.

He said: “It’s really good to work together as a squad in general and it can only help team spirit.

“In the past we may have been away until March and then meet up, but we had just one month off and were then back to it.

“We have a good bunch of lads and it’s been good to work with everyone. When you look at a side like Durham, they are an extremely close-knit bunch and they are very successful.

“Before Christmas, we came in on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to do the team stuff, and then Thursday and Friday was when we work on our individual programmes.

“We have also been in for 7 or 8 o’clock slots with Senior Coach Tim Boon and that has consisted of one-to-one sessions.

“There has been a good mixture of net practice and fitness drills. Since the New Year began, we have been doing bleep tests so our preparation has stepped up another gear.

“In the nets, it’s mainly been a case of scenarios for each individual rather than bowlers bowling at batsmen.

“The bowlers have targets to hit and the batsmen work on scenarios with the bowling machines. The nets are not that realistic to outside, so we tend not to bowl and bat against each other.

“We have been working with Pete (McKnight) mainly on strength work and we’ve also done our fair share of fitness. We are all showing progress and that’s the main thing.”

Gurney’s preparation will have an overseas aspect when he goes to Potchefstroom with a number of the other first team players.

The left-arm seamer went out to South Africa last year and is really looking forward to going again later this week.

He said: “I’m going to Potch with seven or eight of the lads and am really looking forward to it. They have a world-class gym and it’ll be good to play some cricket in the sunshine.”

Gurney, who burst onto the scene last year in Twenty20 cricket and then played in all forms of the game, is also looking forward to the 2010 season already.

In particular, he is looking forward to working with new captain Matthew Hoggard. He said: “I can’t wait to work with Matthew. If he can add just one thing to each of our bowlers’ games then that would benefit everybody a great deal.

“It will be great to talk about setting fields and just bowling in general – it’ll be good to get his opinions.

“He’s played a great deal for England and worked with various international coaches and captains and his experience will be invaluable. He’s taken lots of test match wickets and we will all learn from him.

“I played under Nico (Paul Nixon) and Dipps (Boeta Dippenaar) last season and that was great because they have a wealth of tactical knowledge and experience.

“It is a bit more unusual to have a bowling captain but it will be good to see what he will bring to the team. We are all looking forward to it.”