By JMB
January 28 2007

Joe Sayers leaves for Cape Town on Monday 29th January and was keen to thank The Corridor of Uncertainty for sponsoring his trip. The Corridor was pleased last week to announce the sponsorship of Joe Sayers and Andrew Gale for their trips abroad this winter.

Both guys are working hard at their game in readiness for the 2007 season.

 

In the first of a number of interviews as a result of our contribution to the future of Yorkshire cricket, I spoke to Joe Sayers. Born and bred in Yorkshire, Joe will be opening the innings for many years to come.

 

Tipped to be a future captain of Yorkshire and England by many, Joe has already led his country at Under-19 level. It may be too early for the Yorkshire captaincy to come his way in 2007, but it speaks volumes for the 23-year-olds attitude and cricket brain that he is one of the leading candidates for the job. We’ll just have to ‘watch this space’ and wait and see.

 

In 2006 Joe scored 590 first class runs at an average of 32.77, but cold hard statistics do not illustrate potential. He is one of Yorkshire’s many exciting young prospects and The Corridor of Uncertainty is extremely pleased to be able to assist him in our own small way.

 

Joe was happy to speak to me about his plans for the next few weeks…

 

I’m going to go to Cape Town on 29^th January and it’s to the NBC International Cricket Academy. My contact in England has been Neil Burns, the former wicket-keeper. He’s the chief executive of London County Cricket Club which plays various roles in the game. I first met Neil when I was at Oxford as captain of the Academy side and Neil was working with a guy called Dr Ken West who was our assistant coach at Oxford and is also going to be at Cape Town as well. Through those two contacts I received an invitation from Neil to go to Cape Town this February and was in a position to accept. I actually received a similar invitation last year, but due to work commitments elsewhere I couldn’t accept that time. I’m more than happy to restart work with Neil Burns and Dr West this time around.

 

What will you be working on out there?

 

Well it’s going to be 5 weeks of training and playing. There are going to be quite a few consultant coaches there – Gary Kirsten is one of the consultant batting coaches. There’ll be plenty of batting to be done. I’ll hopefully work on my bowling. All three disciplines really – batting, bowling and fielding. There’s also a psychologist there, a guy called Dr Ken Jennings who has done some work with a number of sports teams in South Africa and also, I think, with the national side - I’ll look forward to having a chat with him. It’s basically a very flexible 5 weeks and I’ll see how much I can improve as many aspects of my game as possible.

 

Is there anything in particular that you have in mind at the moment that you are looking to tweak?

 

Technically speaking at this stage it’s very much just building familiarity with the basics and then on a technical level come the last week in February and into March I’ll start to look at specifics of technique I think. My current position at the club has been mainly a Championship player. There are efforts always being made to make myself a more viable selection in the one day game so that’s always something I’m looking at. So at this stage though as I say it’s very much about building a foundation of fitness and familiarity.

 

When was the last time you held a bat? Have you been doing anything since the season finished?

 

Yeah I started batting mid-December, working with Kevin Sharp our batting coach at the club. I’ve been doing one-to-one sessions with him in the indoor school and then in the last few weeks I’ve started to train with the Yorkshire Under-17 side who are also going out to Cape Town this February. So net practice has started and I’ve built up some decent momentum to take into the South Africa trip.

 

Will there be other English players at the NBC Academy with you?

 

I’m not aware of any county players that will be there at the same time as I will be. In the past there have been quite a few with Nick Compton of Middlesex being the most recent and Darren Stevens of Kent. Before them I think people like Matthew Hoggard and Nasser Hussain were in attendance at the Academy too. It is something that’s been set up for the improvement of county players, obviously in better weather conditions than we have presently. It’s a really exciting opportunity to build into pre-season and hopefully get some match practice as well.

 

So if you could give a message to The Corridor readers who are helping you?

 

Well firstly that I can’t thank them enough for their interest in my development, and in Andrew’s development. I’d like to congratulate them on the success of the website and also for being such dedicated followers of the county, hopefully in the coming season we can give them something to cheer about and as you are aware now there are efforts being made as we speak to make it quite a successful season for the club.

 

Obviously we have Matthew Elliott and Younus Khan coming over to play in 2007. Is playing alongside such names something which excites you as a batsman?

 

I’ve been very lucky in my time on the full staff in the last few years. To play with players like Darren Lehmann and Phil Jaques and now to get the chance to play alongside Younus and Matthew just continues my good fortune. I will be looking to develop my game and learn as much as I can in their company. Hopefully we can win some matches for the club.

 

Thanks to Joe for his time prior to leaving for South Africa. On behalf of The Corridor I’d like to wish him a safe and successful trip and as a result a very successful 2007 season.

 

Joe is keen to help The Corridor in any way he can over the summer. We’ll catch up with him when he returns to our shores in March and stay in touch with him over the summer to see how he’s getting on.

 

We have had a tremendous response to our sponsorship drive. For those of you that were not aware we are sponsoring Andrew and Joe’s winter trips and also Greg Wood for the season. We still have a few shares in the sponsorship going – in return for your financial assistance you not only get a personal sense of pride in the three players future accomplishments but are also entered into an end of season draw where there will be some seriously exciting items of cricket memorabilia up for grabs.

 

For further information on how you too can get involved email James on jimmy69@gotadsl.co.uk.