Greg Smith hopes Northants will be 'ready to fly' after India pre-season trip

​It was announced last week that the club is sending its batters and bowlers to different locations for pre-season training camps at the end of February.

Smith will be looking after the batters as they head to Mumbai, while the bowlers are set to go to South Africa.

There may be those who will argue that there's little point in preparing to play cricket in the early UK spring in April by practising on dry tracks under a hot Indian sun, but Smith insists the work done in Mumbai will be of huge help to the Northants batters.

"We are going away for eight or nine days, which will be great," said Smith, who started his role as batting coach at the beginning of January.

"It will be nice for the batters to just have a lot of volume to work on stuff, and also to just be on grass. They will just be out there batting, and you can't get that here.

"People may say 'why are you going to India where the surfaces are completely different to England?'

"But at the end of the day volume of batting is volume of batting, and it doesn't matter where you are.

"Players should be able to adapt to going out in April and playing on a green seamer, as long as you have faced enough balls and you feel confident, so again it is about mindset.

"If you look at the England team, it doesn't matter where they play they are going to play the same way because their mindset is positive.

"I think if we can get to that place then the players will be ready to fly."