Glover aiming to be a red-ball arrow in Northants pace attack

Brandon Glover is looking forward to seeing how much havoc he can wreak with a red Duke ball in his hand when Northants get their Bob Wills Trophy campaign up and running on Saturday.
Northants fast bowler Brandon GloverNorthants fast bowler Brandon Glover
Northants fast bowler Brandon Glover

The Netherlands fast bowler will be hoping to make his much delayed Northants debut in the four-day clash against Warwickshire at Edgbaston.

The match is the first of the season after the initial start date of early April was scuppered due to the Covid-19 pandemic that brought sport to a standstill, with Glover having been in Northampton and ready to go since March.

Thankfully, as the pandemic is seemingly being brought under some sort of control, sport has started to return with this weekend seeing English professional cricket get underway, following on from the restarts for the likes of football, Formula 1, tennis and golf.

Brandon Glover has been working hard in the netsBrandon Glover has been working hard in the nets
Brandon Glover has been working hard in the nets

The County travel to Edgbaston and Glover, if selected by head coach David Ripley, is looking forward to it, especially as he hasn’t played first-class cricket since turning out for Boland against Western Province in his native South Africa in March 2019.

“I haven’t played it in a while, but I do enjoy the longer version of the game,” said the 23-year-old, who spent the second half of last year excelling in T20 cricket for the Netherlands.

“The past year playing with the Dutch was mainly about the white ball, with the focus on T20 and 50-over cricket, so it will be a challenge getting back into it.

“This will be the first time I have bowled with a red ball in quite a while, but we will have had a decent enough time to work up to it.”

Brandon GloverBrandon Glover
Brandon Glover

If he does play, it will be the first time Glover has bowled with the Duke ball that is used in English cricket, with the ball having a more prominent seam than the Kookaburra balls he is used to on home soil!

And he has enjoyed bowling with it in the nets!

“I have been bowling with the new Duke ball, and I like the movement it gets!” said Glover, eyes bright.

“It certainly gives something the Kookaburra didn’t give back home.

“I know playing red ball cricket is going to be a good challenge, but I am looking forward to it.

“Four days is the longest version of the game, the most pure version, and I always want to get involved in that, I always want to perform well, and hopefully I can give something to the team.”

One concern leading up to the start of the truncated season is whether or not the bowlers will have had enough time to build up their fitness and strength for four-day cricket, where they may be asked to bowl 15 or 20 overs in a day.

Glover, who is now fully fit after a winter ankle operation, thinks the preparation at the County Ground has certainly been good enough.

“We will have had five weeks preparation, and hopefully it will be enough,” he said.

“We have been managed well and now we are really pushing to get full bowling fitness.

“It is not like we are going into a run of 14 county games, we have got five and I am sure there will be rotation and all that stuff.

“I will leave that up to the management, but we should be nice and fit and ready to go for the start of the season.”