Worcestershire opener Jake Libby achieved a personal milestone when scoring his superb unbeaten century in the eight-wicket win over Derbyshire in the LV=Insurance County Championship at the Incora County Ground and says the move to New Road has “revitalised my career.”
Libby completed 5,000 first class runs in his career with his eighth century for Worcestershire since making the move to New Road for the 2020 season.
But particularly impressive are his red ball stats for Worcestershire during the last three years.
In that time, Libby has scored 2,407 first class runs at an average of 49.12.
Libby said: “I’ve been playing the game for a while now and I guess those sort of milestones are always nice to tick off.
“On a personal note it is very pleasing and the manner in it came, in a fantastic start to the season, a win for the lads, tops it off.
“The move to Worcestershire has revitalised my career. It’s been a great opportunity for me and I feel this is my home now.
“I’m really enjoying my time here and good to keep churning out the runs.
“Moving here, I always had the ambitions to become a real senior player and, with Daryl Mitchell retiring, to fill that mantle and score the amount of runs I’ve had is extremely pleasing.
“I’m really happy with where my game is at and hopefully it is another big season.”
Libby has passed the fifty mark on 16 occasions and has gone on to convert eight of those – an impressive 50% – into three-figure scores.
He said: “As an opening batter, you know you are going to get low scores, so the big thing is converting those fifties into hundreds, big hundreds.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to do that in my time at Worcestershire and it is one thing I’ve tried to add to my game over the years.
“It is a very pleasing stat for me.”
Libby certainly enjoys batting at the Incora County Ground and scored a century to earn a draw on the final day of last season’s fixture.
He said: “This year, a winning hundred, to get the team over the line after some great performances, was really pleasing.
“It was good to spend some time in the middle with Azhar (Ali), and a bit with Jack (Haynes) towards the end, and it is a really great start to the year.”
Libby says the team will travel to Durham for Thursday’s Championship match full of confidence.
He said: “We are shaping up well this year. We are not shy to say we really want to get promoted this year.
“I totally back all the guys we’ve got, and I think we’ve got a very strong group and competition for places is super high.
“Durham will be a challenging game, we are aware of that, they are on the back of a loss so they will be hoping to prove something.
“They’ve got a good team but we are really looking forward to the challenge and it’s one we are up for.”
