Worcestershire opener Ed Pollock hopes to take his resurgence in form into the Metro Bank One Day Cup as he revealed the message of support he received from England batter, Dawid Malan.
Pollock says Malan, who has played 114 times for England across all three formats, took the time out to speak to him and offer words of encouragement for nearly half an hour after the recent home Blast encounter with Yorkshire Vikings.
It has been a challenging third season at Visit Worcestershire New Road for Pollock but he showed his quality in the final Blast game in making 67 off 47 balls against visiting Derbyshire Falcons.
Then the left hander smashed a 60 ball hundred against Wales on Sunday at Sudbrook CC.
He said: “I had a very good winter in Australia, got runs in the (Birmingham) League and I came into the competition (T20 Blast) feeling pretty confident.
“Cricket is a big game of momentum and can I take and run with that, the last few days, into the 50 over competition. That is the aim.
“It is very much ‘take the good’ and try and run with it for the next few months.
“Coping with a difficult run is something I’ve had to get a lot better at. I’ve definitely been guilty in the past of being very up and down with it.
“You have to have a lot of trust and I have to look back at old scores and know what I can do and it’s a bit of self belief.
“The way I play, I’m probably one of the more up and down players.
“But David Malan grabbed me at the end of the Yorkshire game and was like ‘I think there is a lot of runs in you.’
“He spoke to me for about 25 minutes and it was just nice to have those kind of guys say to you ‘I think you’ve got it in you.’
“I’ve never spoken to him before in my life and he just came up to me and said ‘is it alright if I chat to you about batting?’ which was brilliant of him.
“I’ve missed that feeling of being out there in the middle, in front of the crowd. It was nice to get that feeling again.”
Pollock spelt out Worcestershire’s ambitions for the remainder of the campaign.
He said: “We don’t lose many to the Hundred and can we keep enough guys on the park.
“The main aim for the rest of the year is can we win the 50 over comp and can we get a couple of wins in the Championship and stay up.”
