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:
Our last game against Sunshine Coast didn’t go brilliantly, it had been raining for the whole week before, we lost the toss and batted first and got bowled out pretty cheaply, and lost on the first day.
However, we’ve bounced back well this week, we bowled our opponents out for 180, so we’re in a good position ahead of the second day this Saturday.
I bowled well, and took 4-22 at the weekend, which is probably the best I’ve bowled since coming out here.
I felt in quite good rhythm, and some of the things I’ve been working on seem to be helping me now, and it’s nice to see them come into effect in a game.
Hopefully we can secure the win this weekend, and head into the Christmas break on a high!
This is the last weekend of games now until January, so it’ll be good to have some time off around Christmas because it’s been non-stop since coming out straight off the back of the Scotland season.
I’ll still be training of course, but it’ll good to have a couple of weeks where it’s more laid-back.
I also had the opportunity to play a T20 game against Papua New Guinea with a couple of other guys from Redlands, as part of a Queensland grade cricket representative side.
They’re here in Australia as part of their preparations for next year’s T20 World Cup, so it was good fun to have something a bit different and use some different skills with the white ball.
My mum and auntie arrived last Friday, so it’s been great to spend time with them in Brisbane, and they seem to be having plenty of fun so far!
They’re staying with one of my mum’s friends, so they’ve settled in, and it was nice to have them down watching at the weekend.
December in Australia definitely feels different, it doesn’t feel particularly Christmassy, and when you’re wandering along the beach you almost forget that it is Christmastime.
Some of the houses still give it the full works, they’re lit up like Christmas markets and have planes landing in the front garden, but in general it feels a lot different to back home.
But it’s nice to do something different, and it’s nice to still be playing cricket, because at this time of year the cricket season can feel like a long way away.
The Men’s Under 19s World Cup is just around the corner, and it will be a great experience for everyone involved.
Our World Cup was impacted by COVID, so we didn’t get to do an awful lot outside of the cricket, but we stayed in South Africa this year before we went to Zimbabwe and it was a really cool place, so I’m sure they’ll have a great time.
It was a good experience playing some high-standard cricket, and you learn how these tournaments work because you don’t really get an experience of playing that volume of cricket in a short period of time before under 19s.
I’m actually playing with Jack Sinfield now at Redlands who I played against in the Under 19s World Cup when we played Australia, so we joke about that quite a lot.
Scotland are in a strong group so they’ll be playing some very good players, and I’m sure they’ll learn so much because I did.
It’s a chance to show yourself what you can do as well, and understand the level you’re at compared to the rest of the world, because cricket in Scotland is a small world.
