We have a crucial six weeks coming up at Beaumaris as we look to secure our place in the finals.
After a break for Christmas, as happens with all club cricket in Australia, we started up again on the second Saturday in January and won a two-day game against Bentleigh, who are bottom of the table.
We won by five wickets chasing 146, and I got 40 batting at four before leaving one on off-stump with five to win.
We’re now in the midst of another two-day game, against Mordialloc, who are third in the table and a place above us. We resume on Saturday on 66-1 chasing 169, and I’m 10 not out.
After that, we play second and first in the table, Bonbeach and South Caulfield. It’s going to be a tough run for us, but we’re confident we can get the job done and be playing finals cricket before I link back up with Yorkshire in mid-March.
Christmas was really nice. Myself and my girlfriend, Ellie, went down to Sorrento for New Year. We had a New Year’s party, spent a couple of nights down there and explored the Great Ocean Road. We stayed a few nights in Lorne, which was lovely to get away from the city.
Picture courtesy of Noah Kelly. Noah keeping wicket for Melbourne club Beaumaris.
Ellie’s gone back home now, but she’s already looking at flights to come back out around October time.
The plan is for me to come back to Melbourne next winter. I know Gavin (Hamilton) is keen on as many players as possible across our two squads – the men and the women – to spend next winter outdoors.
I read the article on the Yorkshire website in which he was saying he wants 85 percent of the squad to be away. And being so young, with not many commitments back at home, I probably fall right into the middle of that and now is a good time to make the most of it.
My mum and dad (Rita and Mark) have also been and gone. They visited some family in Malaysia and came out here for two weeks, and they loved it. They got to see the game versus Bentleigh, and away from cricket I was basically a tour guide for a couple weeks.
I went to the Australian Open Tennis a couple of times whilst that was on.
Myself, Ellie, mum and dad actually saw the first round match between Nick Kyrgios and Jacob Fearnley. We weren’t far off being the only Brits in the crowd cheering for Fearnley, and he went on and won it.
Picture by Century Cricket Competitions. Noah Kelly is having a profile winter in Melbourne.
The atmosphere was electric. It was probably one of the best atmospheres I’ve experienced at a sporting event – it was unreal.
The event is almost like a festival given all the bars, the food stalls and the music on. Some people just go and don’t watch any tennis. They just soak up the atmosphere. You don’t have to be a fan of tennis to enjoy yourself, whereas at somewhere like Wimbledon I think it’s different. That’s an event for the real tennis lovers.
Obviously, we are getting closer and closer to the start of the new season back home, and the excitement is definitely building.
With that will naturally come an increased intensity to the work I do out here, especially with the tour of Abu Dhabi in mind in March.
I’ve stayed pretty level and in the same routine since I got here in October.
I’ve trained and netted three or four times a week, played on a Saturday and kept up my fitness as well.
Picture by YCCC. Noah Kelly is hoping to impress new coach Anthony McGrath as he pushes for a first-team place in 2025.
Abu Dhabi is a really exciting opportunity and a great place to try and showcase some skills that we’ve all developed over the winter as a squad given we have both T20 and red ball cricket out there.
White ball success is something we really want to push for this year. Getting to Finals Day in the Blast a couple of years ago was great, and we want to replicate that this year and go all the way.
I think we’re going in the right direction with our white ball stuff.
James Wharton had a breakout century in the T20 stuff in 2023, Will Luxton’s starting to develop as well. And they’re just two young lads to mention.
You can add Lythy and Mala to that. They’re like juggernauts in the Blast!
I think we’re coming out of a transitional phase as a squad, and with the new management – they’ve got so much experience on that side of things – I think we’ll be in a good place next year.
Picture courtesy of Noah Kelly. Noah keeps wicket in white ball cricket for Melbourne club Beaumaris.
Talking of T20, I really enjoyed watching the Big Bash, which was won by the Hobart Hurricanes on Monday. I thought it was a really entertaining tournament this year.
It was great to see Jafer Chohan get his chance with the Sydney Sixers late on. He bowled really nicely in his last two games against the Hurricanes and Sydney Thunder (2-28 and 1-22). He looked like he was straight into his work, as he was for us in the Blast last summer.
Jafer is such a skilful bowler and has a good change of pace. He’s someone Yorkshire fans will have seen a lot of in the Blast, but I also think he can impact for us in Championship cricket.
Especially on some of the pitches we play on in red ball cricket, you need a bit of change. Someone like Jafer, he adds that bit of variety.
You can look at Adil Rashid and how well he did for Yorkshire in the Championship and in Test Cricket for England for a while. Jafer is definitely someone I can see impacting for us next year. It will be really exciting to see how he goes if he gets his chance.
