Durham

A Day in the Life...

A typical match day in the Durham UCCE season, whether away at a county, at another UCCE or at home in Durham, often begins the night before when the team and squad members get together for a meal - Pizza Express and Nando’s being the lads’ favourites. Following a good night’s sleep, it’s a reasonably early start (for a student!) with everyone arriving at the highly picturesque Racecourse ground for 9am and indulging in one of Big Steve’s breakfasts. We’re changed and ready outside for a thorough warm-up at 9:30am - a run and a stretch in the lead up to a short, but often hostile, game of touch rugby. We’ll then move onto some fielding practice which includes a session of Graeme ‘Foxy’ Fowler’s infamous high catches, which are exceptionally high. The bowlers then have a bowl and the batters throw-downs while the physio makes sure that everyone is fit for the day, with the bowlers always taking up most of his time. Throughout, there will always be plenty of banter, usually subjecting certain people to some repetitive and light hearted abuse, but integrated into a positive team atmosphere discussing the prospects for the day ahead.

The First Class fixtures provide a slightly different atmosphere where nerves play a big part – everyone is generally a bit quieter. However, ignoring the reputations of the opposition and treating the game like any other, whilst being difficult to do, allows us to perform better, and once we have overcome this, these games become highly competitive and extremely enjoyable. The counties are generally great to play against, with players are often fighting to prove themselves for first team spots which only improves our experience of competing against some top cricketers who are putting their all in. For us, these are high profile games and provide university cricketers a stage on which to showcase themselves to counties. When off the field, the counties are always willing to discuss things and pass on valuable advice, and likewise always want to know about uni life! Foxy Fowler has a great amount of experience and is highly respected by us - throughout the day he is always there to point us in the right direction. The university fixtures, whether in the 2 day UCCE competition or the BUSA one day competition, are always played at a very high level and in a very competitive atmosphere – fighting for a place in the final at Lord’s is enough to raise the spirits of even the most placid of team members.

Once a day’s play is over, the physio will take us for a team stretch and warm-down where we can also discuss what went right and wrong in the day’s play and what our plans for the next day’s play are. Most evenings the team are generally too tired to go home and cook so again will get together for some food and a relaxing time

Nick Prowting
Captain Durham University Cricket Club