Northants cricketers are back in training at the County Ground

Northants players returned to the County Ground for training for the first time since March on Wednesday, as preparations began in earnest for the sport’s proposed return on August 1.

Not one ball has been bowled in the domestic season due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with the gates at Wantage Road having been locked since the middle of March.

But the ECB have stated they are working towards the season starting on August 1, with either a four-day or 50-over competition to start things off, leading into the Vitality T20 Blast at the end of the month and into September.

Those details will be thrashed out at meeting of the ECB and the counties next week, but Northants head coach David Ripley has already got back to work with his squad.

The bowlers were the first to get up and running on Wednesday, going through individual sessions, with the batters scheduled to go back for the first time next week.

Fresh from overseeing his first training session in more than three months, Ripley explained how things worked.

“We had the nine bowlers in, and they came in as three groups,” said the head coach.

“They all had a bowl with Chris Liddle on a one-to-one basis, they all had a session with Chris Lorkin, the strength and conditioning guy, on a one-to-one basis, and they all either did some batting or some fielding with me, on a one-to-one basis.

“So it was small numbers, and it was nice and safe.

“It is all a bit of a rigmarole getting the lads into the ground, and they all have to have their own cricket balls, so we had to dot a few is and cross a few ts.

“But once the lads got the cricket ball in their hand it was all plain sailing to be honest.

“Everything was spread out, with all the facilities we have at our disposal, and I guess the next challenge is we have the batters returning next Wednesday.

“The bowlers had got a week’s start, and then the batters will kick in, and the good news for when they turn up is that hopefully we will know what format of cricket we will be playing (at the start of August).

"That would mean we wouldn’t have to second guess what ball we will get out of the bag, it will be dictated by what format we are going to start with.”

Ripley was delighted with the fitness of the bowling unit, although he admitted it will have been hard for the players to maintain motivation during the three months of lockdown.

“The players all had their own fitness programmes, but if there is no light at the end of the tunnel or no fixtures, and no talk about the cricket, it is not always easy to stick to it,” he said.

“I think the lads all started off very well, but gradually those who are less inclined to find fitness enjoyable have not kept it to the level, but we have had no surprises.

“Everybody was in pretty good shape and Chris’s sessions were pretty tough for that first session back.”

As well as the players being in good nick, the County Ground was also in decent shape with Ripley praising head groundsman Craig Harvey and his team.

“The ground looked sensational, it really did,” he said. “I popped in a couple of weeks ago and it was just tinging a bit brown, but that bit of rain we have had meant the outfield had greened up and it was cut immaculately.

“Craig and his team have done a brilliant job getting everything ready.”

The next step will be getting the wicket ready for action when the season eventually starts, although Ripley admits he isn’t getting over-confident things will go 100 per cent smoothly on that front.

“We are all very positive with how things are, but there is still a little bit of the pessimist in me that it only needs something to go wrong somewhere,” he said.

“Leicester has some problems at the moment with the spike there, or if something happens in the England-West Indies series, and it’s still not foolproof is it?

“But it does seem like we are 95 per cent sure that it will start and the programme will look like two competitions, which will be great.

“I am really pleased with what we have put together so far (in terms of the return to training), and I’m now looking forward to going through the gears through this month, seeing a fixture list and then getting excited again.

“We spent all winter looking at the fixtures and getting all excited about where we are going to start and what we are going to do, but obviously that all disappeared pretty quickly.”

“I just want to see some lads get some opportunity and get back out on the cricket field.”