Blog - Chris Swainland - The Winter at Oxford MCCU.

2 April 2010

Oxford UCCE embark on their first first-class game of the season against Northamptonshire ccc at the parks tomorrow. Despite a warm up game against Warwickshire ccc which was severely rain affected and eventually rained off, in many ways the fixture tomorrow kicks off the season.

Oxford's Chris Swainland talks about training over the winter The squad have worked extremely hard over the winter, with compulsory fitness training every other day at 7.30am, which included specific weight training, cardiovascular conditioning, boxing and core stability/flexibility. Our fitness coach/osteopath, Andrew Dubowski, delivered the challenging fitness programmes and tailored a specific programme for each player, setting goals specific to each individual.

It wasn't just fitness that was thoroughly programmed over the winter, a huge amount of work went into technical cricketing and physiological techniques. Head coach, Graham Charlesworth, created an excellent core team of coaching support. Grant flower was inspirational, working with the batters, left arm spinners and slip fielders, he was also hugely influential in discussing the mental side of the game, drawing on his many experiences from international and county cricket.

Toby Radford and Graham Charlesworth himself also worked very closely with the batters and in-particular, with the help of video technology, were able to fine tune intricate techniques.

Rupert Evens regularly worked with the squads spinners focusing on the technical art of spin bowling as well as discussing game plans and concentrating on tactics during different scenarios.

Top flight cricketers John Lewis and Steve Kirby, were on hand to improve the seam bowlers techniques and game plans ready for the 20twenty, one day and the longer formats of the game.

One of the UK's leading sports psychologists, Steve Sylvester worked closely with the squad in developing physiological techniques as harnessed by the world champions he has worked with in the past.

So with no stone being left unturned during the squad's preparation, it will be a fascinating season that promises much. The first ball will hopefully be bowled at 11am at the parks tomorrow, weather permitting, the predicted team is as follows: Jak Martin (cpt.), Edward Abel, Raj Sharma, Duncan Bradshaw, Edward Young, Richard Coughtrie(wkt.), Sam Aggarwal, Matthew Watson, Daniel Conway, Marc Milligan, Michael Barnard.