Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWPix.com, Noah Kelly is into T20 mode with Yorkshire’s second team and Driffield Town.
By Noah Kelly.
I mentioned in my last blog, before the start of the season, about one of my goals for the year being to start the season strongly. So to start with two red-ball centuries in the first five games is a really nice feeling.
The first one I got was opening the batting in the second innings of our friendly draw against Leeds/Bradford University at Weetwood early last month. The second came in another friendly – a win against Warwickshire at Headingley. In that, it was the first innings, and I was batting at seven.
I think moving around the order and gaining different experiences is really key – especially as a young batter.
At the end of the day, I don’t know where I could potentially make my first-class debut. It could be opening, keeping, batting in the middle order.
So, if I can experience these different roles, I can hopefully have some experience to fall back on. And any runs I score in those roles only helps towards that.
That’s all you’re trying to do in second-team cricket – put yourself in the shop window.
I also really enjoy the challenge of trying to work things out, game plans and stuff like that, in different positions in the order.
The second one against Warwickshire (141 not out) was my first at Headingley, and it was great that it came in a win.
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWPix.com. Noah has scored two red-ball centuries for the White Rose twos already this summer.
It’s very hard to win games at Headingley. We know the statistics of first-team games there going back a few years. It can be a tough place to take 20 wickets at. To do that with a young group, and then chase a target on the last day, it meant that bit more.
In a few years’ time, it could be that a lot of players on both sides could be playing against each other in a Championship match.
And with 50 percent of your first-team matches being played at Headingley and Scarborough in the first team, it’s good to get used to playing, scoring runs and winning at those venues.
It was a tough one to lose our only Championship match so far down at Hampshire. We had our chances against an experienced side down there.
For us, there was only Will Luxton, Ben Cliff and Harry Duke with first-class experience, of around about 30 games between them. Hampshire had the likes of Organ, Orr, Weatherley, Middleton and Currie.
With that in mind, the fact we had our chances to win is a real positive.
But I do think a bit of a theme at the start of the season – and this is across both the first and second teams – is that you have to take your chances to win games.
With the seconds, if we want to start winning games and consistently, we need to start putting teams to bed when we get the chance. But that comes with experience, and it’s been a good learning.
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWPix.com. Noah has spoken of how Yorkshire’s second-team training has differed in the build-up to this summer’s T20 block.
We’ve now moved into T20 cricket, which is always an exciting time of the summer. It certainly comes around pretty quickly, doesn’t it.
I think it’s fair to say, as a club, we haven’t quite reached our full potential in T20 cricket yet – so we’re all desperate to keep improving this year.
We’ve actually changed our practice a little bit in the seconds. We’ve done a lot more scenario-based training with open nets. You walk out to bat, and if you’re out then you don’t get another bat for 45 minutes.
You also get to hit sixes and see them land rather than seeing them go straight into the net.
I presume it will be something similar with the firsts because this is a whole-club mentality. We know we can improve on previous years in this format.
I really enjoy my T20 cricket. I had a particularly successful week a couple of winters ago in Melbourne when I scored three hundreds, and it’s something I would love to keep developing.
Runs is your currency in second-team cricket, and I’d love to be able to bat in the top three and hopefully put a few scores in to win games. That’s a really good target for me – trying to help towards as many wins as possible.
We had Logan van Beek play a game for us against Nottinghamshire at Weetwood on Friday, and it sounds like AJ Tye will play for us at Leicestershire tomorrow ahead of the first-team competition starting on Friday.
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWPix.com. AJ Tye is due to play for Yorkshire’s second team against Leicestershire at Grace Road tomorrow.
It’s really good to be around players like that.
We’ve had Rooty, Shan Masood and Dawid Malan playing a game or two in the seconds in the last couple of years. It’s pretty cool to be able to learn from them.
And with the likes of Moeen Ali, or AJ, any of the other new signings, they would also be able to give you a completely fresh look on your own game, which is obviously very beneficial as well.
Away from Yorkshire, I’ve only played a handful of games for Driffield so far this summer. I got a 70-odd in a National Cup game a couple of weeks ago and three fifties at the weekend, two in T20s against York and Carlton Towers on Sunday, both of which we won.
Like that Warwickshire friendly for Yorkshire, it’s even sweeter when the runs you get contribute to victories.
