BOHANNON APPRECIATING COMP PITCHES

Date: 7th May 2015

A Paul Edwards copyright exclusive for L&DCC Official Website.

S+B's new arrival ambitious for success

As Josh Bohannon prepares to pit his batting skills against the attack of the Med Imaging Liverpool Competition champions Ormskirk, the former Farnworth Social Circle batsman has paid tribute to the league’s standard of pitches.

“The quality of the wickets in the Competition represent a massive step up for me,” he said. “I really enjoyed my cricket at Farnworth and I was playing with a great set of lads but you almost turn up and think if it’s length, I’ve got to go forward, and if it’s short, I’ve still got to go forward because you don’t know if the ball is going to hit you in the ankle or on the head.

“The wickets in the Competition are almost like a Lancashire game and the outfields are flatter, so you can execute your fielding skills better.”

Having played plenty of age group cricket in the Comp, Bohannon is well placed to comment and his experience will increase after a season in the Premier League.

However, the highly-rated 18-year-old has already enjoyed a major highlight when he Lancashire’s twelfth man for their recent LV= Division Two game against Kent.

“Being twelfth man for the first team was a real experience,” he said. “I got on the field enough and although I didn’t have the opportunity to take any catches or do anything outstanding, it was the experience of being around the players and seeing the way they prepare for the game which was very different from what I have seen before.

“I still feel I do too much in my warm-ups and that I do these things just to keep busy rather than doing what I actually need, so it’s false practice. What they do is applied to how they play the game whereas I’m hitting a couple of balls for the sake of it.

“I also learned so much about the way the drinks are prepared and the food that they eat. It’s not just about having a pack of crisps, like you might do in a club game.”

Bohannon is unapologetic – why should he be? – about his ambition to be a professional cricketer and he admits to a degree of excitement when people label him thus. For the moment, though, he is listening to all the advice he can get from the people whose decisions will do much to determine his immediate future.

“I had a chat with Ashley Giles, the Cricket Director, and Gary Yates, the Assistant Coach, when I was twelfth man for Lancashire and they were telling me the things I needed to do in order to become a professional player,” Bohannon said.

“Gary told me not to think too far ahead but that I was in a good position. As long as I improve in certain areas, there was every chance.”