Wednesday, March 9th, 2016

Player Of Year Leach Not Taking Place In Side For Granted

Player Of Year Leach Not Taking Place In Side For Granted

Worcestershire Players' Player Of The Year Joe Leach says he does not take his place in the side for granted despite his superb form during the majority of last summer.

New vice-captain Leach finished the campaign as the County's leading wicket-taker with 59 wickets in the County Championship and also made several useful contributions with the bat.

But the all-rounder, who did not start in the side for the past two campaigns, insists he has to perform well in pre-season to bolster his chances of being selected.

Leach said: "How am I going to top last season? I'm not really thinking about that happened last year anymore really. My focus is 100% on this season and just trying to do the best I can to get promoted really.

"I haven't set any personal goals as of yet. I'm just going to concentrate on this season. It's a fresh start and fresh challenge for us as a team and let's see what happens.

"Last year is irrelevant. We've still got competition for places and stuff at the start of the season and I'm viewing that the same as I have done any other pre-season.

"I've got to have a good pre-season to make sure I get picked first and foremost and then take that into the county season hopefully and do what we did last year."

Leach was not chosen for the first four matches of the 2014 campaign and first two games of last season.

He said: "I would still not say my playing is a 'given' in the side or anything like that.

"For me, it's really important to do all the right things pre-season, start well and snowball in the summer like I did last year really.

Worcestershire finally tasted some action today during the pre-season tour of Abu Dhabi in a 50 over match against Essex at the Zayed Sytadium.

Yesterday's scheduled T20 match with the same opponents was washed out.