Ian Cockbain New Zealand Blog Part One
31 October 2012
Ian Cockbain is spending the winter playing and coaching in New Zealand and will be keeping Gloucestershire supporters up to date with his time over there through an exclusive series of articles for this website.
Look out for more blogs from Ian, Richard Coughtrie and other players who have gone abroad this winter over the coming weeks.
"As our season finished up and, with the end of season tests all out of the way, I enjoyed a few rare days back home with the family chilling out and resting up the body.
"This was to be short lived though as I was nervously hopping on the plane in Manchester Airport to start the small journey over to Christchurch, New Zealand (Yes, Earthquake Capital of the World). The lads obviously didn't remind me of that fact every day before I was leaving!!
"With that short flight out of the way and dropping into Christchurch over the beautiful scenery of the mountains, I was wondering what this new season had in stall for me, captaining a young Premier Division team, which was apparently full of potential.
"After just one day getting the jetlag out of my system, I turned up to training on the Thursday to finally meet the guys and pick up my bat for the first time in a couple of weeks. Training went well. They seemed like a good bunch and, luckily for me, eager to learn.
"Game day came around on Saturday and we faced the reigning champs in a one-dayer at home. I gathered the lads before the game and rather nervously gave my first team talk, trying to get across my ideas of how we wanted to approach, not only this game, but the rest of the season.
"Things went well and the guys seemed up for the challenge of a long hard season. As all you captains out there know, looking forward to getting off to a solid start never quite works out the way you hope. I lost the toss and we were hastily inserted to bat on what you might call a "raging green seamer".
"Marist-Harewood CC all out 79!! Not a great start. I knew if we were patient with the ball for long enough we would create 10 chances as the wicket wasn't great and the outfield made scoring very tough.
"Getting this across to the lads was the difficult part and not even I would have expected what happened when it was our turn to bowl. The wind picked up and the drizzle was coming down sideways. It was the most horrific conditions I have ever played in, but the bowlers battled through and the batters were hating it. The guys bowled unbelievably and we had our first win of the season. St Albans all out 65!!
"After all the warnings of how to look after myself if an earthquake hit, I was nervously looking forward to feeling a little one. Sure enough I didn't have to wait too long,
"I was sitting on the couch one lunch time and things started to shake. By the time I actually worked out what was going on it was all over and I was kind of excited that I had felt one The sobering fact of the matter was that my housemate was at work and didn't even realise we had one.
"This shows how often they have them and, having driven around the Central Business District and the worst affected area, I saw how devastating these everyday occurrences are. It was so eerie driving through entire suburbs where tens of thousands of homes were devastated and have been abandoned. It’s what I imagine driving through a ghost town is like.
"After the dramatics of the weekend and my first earthquake I settled into a bit of a routine consisting of the gym in the mornings followed by a bit of coaching in the afternoons.
"Perfect way to spend your days you would imagine. How wrong you would be!! Having never done any coaching before, I seriously under estimated the patience you need for looking after and trying to coach a bunch of little guys and little girls.
"This was a serious eye-opener. After the first couple of sessions of working me out and realising I was pretty chilled and not very strict, they started to see how far they could push the boundaries. As a few of the lads will tell you, my patience isn't great and Richard Coughtrie, having lived with me, knows it better than most!
"I look forward to keeping you guys informed of how my time over here is going."
Coey
