A marathon introduction to senior representative cricket has fuelled young ‘keeper Nick Brown’s dream of reaching higher honours.
The 16-year-old Southland Boys’ High School gloveman made his full Hawke Cup debut for the Southland men’s team against Canterbury Country in Rangiora last weekend.
It was a tough outing against the reigning Hawke Cup holders in a three-day match which had been held over from last summer.
Canterbury Country posted 302 for four on the first day after being sent in to bat and then kicked on the next day to compile 421, with Southland spending nearly 140 overs in the field.
It was a big shift for Nick, one of two Southland players on debut, behind the stumps and potentially involved for every ball.
“I was pretty nervous,” he said.
“I think it’s the first time I’ve been that nervous keeping, but it was awesome. The whole team was really welcoming and they are all really good guys so they made it easy. I’ve never had to keep for a whole day and then get up and do it again the next morning before.”
Nick is in his first year of the two-year SBS Bank Academy Southland programme, which provides mental skills, nutrition, athlete life and strength and conditioning support to many of the province’s best young athletes.
Those mental skills were tested in a match which has helped teach him the importance of being able to ‘switch off’ in between deliveries, Nick said.
“It was a great experience but I was pretty wrecked at the end of it.”
Southland is a feeder province for major association Otago and Nick is working his way through the grades.
He has represented Otago at under 17 level, spent the winter travelling up to Dunedin once a week as part of an Emerging Volts training group and was recently selected in the Otago under 19 squad.
Nick’s first year in the Academy programme has proved really useful, he said.
“I’ve loved it. It’s been really beneficial for me. It brings all the aspects of performance together. For me it (used to be) just show up on a Saturday and try to play well, but now it’s tying in all the extra stuff you need to do to get to those next levels,” he said.
“It’s so important to be focused on the process rather than the outcome because cricket can be so fickle. You can’t get too caught up in things if you don’t go well one weekend.”
Southland’s most successful cricketer of recent times, Jacob Duffy, who has captained Otago and played for New Zealand in white ball cricket, also went through the Academy programme and Nick would love to follow a similar progression.
“I’d love to try and get up to that next level, work my way through the pathways and hopefully end up playing for somebody like the Blackcaps would be pretty cool,” Nick said.
“It’s pretty cool seeing someone who has been through a similar start with Boys’ High and been able to go through and play for the Blackcaps and Otago. It’s pretty cool for someone from down here to do that.”
Source: Academy Southland
Published by arrangement.
Story by Nathan Burdon