PEARS skipper Joe Leach has called on his side to build on the ‘significant progress’ made in red-ball cricket last summer in the Bob Willis Trophy.
Leach believes the template set out during the winter in terms of how to play four-day cricket after two disappointing years is starting to become ingrained into the squad.
But the all-rounder is aware there is still improvement needed to ‘get to where we want to be’ in the first-class game and that there will again be plenty of hard work on the agenda at Malvern College as the players report back for training.
“We set our stall out to make significant improvements on last year and we showed that not only in the results but also in the way we played.” he said.
“We made significant progress from where we were last year. The way we want to play our cricket, hopefully, it is starting now to become ingrained in the group and it is just about improving on that and carrying on that journey and progression.
“By and large we batted exceptionally well. We were amongst the leading scorers in the country, which is a great sign for our batting group and our strength in depth.
“With the ball, we generally speaking managed to keep control of the scoreboard. At times, it would have been nice to string together more sessions, but that’s been ultra-critical and obviously with my bowlers’ hat on as well.
“There was some significant improvement. We lost to Somerset, which was disappointing and there is a need to go again if we want to maintain what we are trying to do and improve on it and keep the building blocks going.”
