Scotland international Jack Jarvis is spending the winter in Brisbane, Australia, continuing his cricket development with Redlands Tigers.
The 20-year-old all-rounder will be detailing his experiences down under throughout the winter on cricketscotland.com:
It was great to get our first win of the season in the first grade this weekend, against the University of Queensland, which was a good feeling after a frustrating draw the week before.
We won the game in the first innings after bowling them out for 180, and then scoring about 250, before we had another bowl at them in the final session to take some more bonus points.
I was really pleased with how I bowled, I took five wickets across both innings, and I feel in a good place now.
The first couple of weeks I was still adapting to the new conditions and adjusting to being in a new country, but I feel a lot more comfortable now, and some of the things I’ve been working on during training are coming along quite well.
We’ve got a strong bowling attack who all bring something different, I’ve been bowling first change and feel like I’ve found my role in the group.
We’ve got four seamers who all bring different skills and variety to the attack, as well as a couple of good spinners, so when it gets a bit hotter, we’ll be able to share the bowling about!
Off the pitch, I’ve been doing lots of gym work through my programme from SIS.
The programme is built quite specific to my bowling so it’s really helping in that sense, and it gets reviewed every month when we’ll adapt it and change it slightly so that it’s not too repetitive and I’m not just doing the same things.
I’m really enjoying it, and because it’s specific to developing my skills it makes you want to do it that bit more, because you can see how it helps you in your cricket.
The best thing now on a Saturday morning is not having to check the weather and look out of your bedroom window when you wake up, you just know the sun is going to be out and you’re going to be playing cricket.
I can’t say I’m missing being in Scotland in November, I’m really enjoying my time here so far, meeting new people and enjoying different experiences.
It would be nice to be seeing my family and friends, but my mum and auntie are going to be coming out in December so that will be cool.
I’ve started working now at a golf club just around the corner, just helping here and there in the kitchen and the bar, but I’m hoping to get a few free rounds of golf out of it!
I’m really missing my golf at the moment, so hopefully we’ll be able to get out soon when there’s a spare day!
We’ve been following the World Cup where we can, with a lot of it being in the middle of the night, and it has been frustrating to watch from our point of view.
We were so close to qualifying, and to see the Netherlands performing how they are, there is a sense of that that could have been us out there.
But at the same time, it’s great that there’s an associate nation there performing at a high level and showing what we can all do, and I’m sure everyone else is seeing it in a similar way.
We know what we can do, so we’ll hopefully be able to show that on a similar stage in the T20 World Cup in June.
