Just an update, cause I can....

It’s Friday night, I’m sitting on my bed in my new place, that I only moved into last Thursday, watching SA bowl to the Ausies on the telly, and I couldn’t be happier.

My place is hardly huge; it’s one room and an en-suite.  Kitchen, lounge and bedroom all in one; it’ll do for now as I don’t need to much space for myself and my couple of bags that I’ve been living out of for the last five months, although the bar next door could do with being a little less noisy.  In saying that, as soon as I make this place home I have to leave, and, again, I couldn’t be happier.

I head off to Australia for the Chappell-Hadlee Series on Tuesday and in doing that I will check out of my accommodation and then move back in when I return, into a bigger apartment though that time!

I got a very good phone call on Wednesday afternoon; it was the one that told me I was in the squad of 14 for the One Day series.  I knew that the phone call was going to be that afternoon so the phone wasn’t too far from me and it didn’t have to ring to many times before I picked it up.  It was either going to be good news or ‘keep trying, you’re real close.’  It was the ‘good news’ call.  Happy days!

It was quite a weird feeling being told that you in the Black Caps, again.  I’ve been a part of the Test team for the last 15 months and have only missed one of the Test matches played in that time, but to get called into a ‘new’ group was like getting the very first phone call again; that wonderful feeling of hard work coming good and the excitement of the next few weeks ahead.  I put some Bon Jovi on, loud, opened a beer, stood on my balcony and enjoyed the world around me; little precious moments where you can feel completely happy for the work you’ve done.

But it’s not all done yet.  It’s only just started.  I’m watching this game, on the telly, with a little more interest than I did the last couple.  I picked up on a couple of things, sent some txts to a couple of guys asking opinions on a couple of the batters in terms of plans to bowl to them.  I’m making my notes, being a bit of a geek, really!

This week has been a pretty tough one training wise, three hard fitness sessions and then weights today, alongside work in the nets.  It’ll be a lazy night tonight with training at 8am tomorrow before heading down to Invercargill to play Otago in our last State Shield match. 

Yesterday, Thursday, we sat down in the changing room, all of the playing guys in the Wellington team, and had a very open and honest chat about our form, what we can do about it and how we can turn it around for the Twenty 20 series coming up.  A couple of guys walked out with their heads down after getting some honest feedback in regards to their role and how they’ve performed it.  Honest feedback is often the hardest to take, but it’s the best to get; you know exactly where you need to make adjustments in your game and you know the people that have passed on the feedback are going to be watching, and helping, you get there.

Today was a good fun day, apart from the weights session, I hate doing weights.  On the courier I received some new gloves, some never been seen before gloves from my gear sponsor AERO.  Used them this afternoon and they’re a little different, as are my pads, but will certainly keep my hands safe! ADIDAS sent me a couple of pairs of boots today too, again wore them this afternoon in the nets, feel great.  And to add to that, I had bought some golf clubs as a Christmas pressie for ME and they arrived today after taking a couple of weeks to get here.  It really was like Christmas!  Great day, huh!?

I’m going to try to keep getting these blogs in while in Oz, it may get a little tough with the gaps and travel between matches, but I’ll be doing my best to keep what’s going on out there and in my head updated as much as I can.

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