Player Blog: Tom Smith on Christmas cooking, fitness training and catching up with an old friend
7 January 2016
Happy New Year to you all.
We got back in on January 4 to be told by Daws (Richard Dawson) that the first ball of the season is only 40 training days away – which really focuses the mind.
A big change for me over the last few months has been moving back to Sussex to be closer to family and it was lovely to spend our first Christmas at our new house in Horsham.
We had Kieran Noema-Barnett over with his girlfriend Tiana and her daughter Amaiah which was really nice.
I have been staying with Kieran a fair bit when I have come up to train over the last few months so it was great to be able to pay him back.
We did turkey and lamb for Christmas dinner. I was in charge of the lamb, which was supposed to be slow cooked and ended up being very slow-cooked – it took an hour longer than we anticipated!
It was a really good day which included some very competitive games of Chase the Ace which saw Amaiah crowned house champion.
Training will start to be more skills and scenario based from now on but before Christmas we were doing a lot of fitness work.
This included a new two hour circuit training session with Nathan Walsh from the BS7 gym.
As a cricketer you get used to doing the same things each year, weights, track runs etc but these have really kept us on our toes.
Having someone come in from outside cricket with new ideas has been quite exciting and we have done lots of things we wouldn’t normally do. They have worked lots of different muscles and the boys have found them really tough both physically and mentally.
It has been great to welcome a familiar face to the club in Chris Liddle.
He moved to Sussex in 2007 which was my first year on the staff there. We ended up living together for three years and have remained good friends.
Before he signed for Gloucestershire he came over for a chat and obviously I had nothing but praise for the club. I think there are a lot of similarities in the values and work ethics of both clubs so although it is a new environment for him he has settled in quickly.
Chris will be an ideal replacement for James Fuller with his experience in white ball cricket and he also has a real hunger to play more red ball cricket.
As well as my own training I have also been working with the spinners on the Academy and the Gloucestershire Cricket Board’s Emerging Players Programme.
It has been nice to catch up with the guys I coached last year and see how they have developed over the last 12 months.
We did quite thorough technical work with them last year to help them get the basic right but this year it is more about tactics and the mind-set you need as a spinner.
There are some good young bowlers there and it is looking promising for the future.
