The first few days were just settling in. My body was still messed up with the jetlag and I needed time to get it right! The club president of Prospect cricket club picked me up from the airport and took on a bit of a tour of the city. The first thing that hit me was the amount of space there is over here. Compared to England where everything is packed into into tiny spaces and high rises are common, houses tend to be spread out over a wider area and a lot of the buildings are spread over one floor. This seemed strange at first. Compared to some of the English cities Adelaide seemed to be small but very busy and had a lot going on. Obviously the main thing that I noticed was the weather. Coming from England where it was just starting to turn very cold, windy and rainy- seeing the sun was awesome! I could definitely get used to it!

After a couple of days I started training. Hard but enjoyable is how I would describe it. The Aussie way of training is much harder than back home. Its much more intense, hard and specific. This really went well with my approach. Push yourself all the time seemed to be the main idea I got from it, whether it be in the gym or just doing basic cricket skills in the nets. Sometimes in England I have trained without a purpose and not gaining what I really should from it. Out here everything is done with a purpose , with a specific goal in mind and this really hit home with me. We tend to do middle practices and stay away from nets. This way you are always playing like you would in a game- if you are out in training, you are out and don’t bat the rest of the day. It really toughens you up and makes you value your wicket. I am now looking forward to playing my first game on Saturday! The weather is supposed to be getting up to 36* this weekend-- not bad for spring I suppose!!