PLAYER DIARY: Fi Morris on Pre-Season tour plans, India and 2025
As a squad of Thunder players, we were asked to do a Who’s Who questionnaire last week, and one of the questions on it was, ‘What are you most looking forward to about the new domestic structure of Women’s Cricket?’
I said, ‘A proper Roses rivalry’.
There are a number of things which are exciting now that all teams are aligned to the counties instead of it being regionalised.
For me, though, the chance to play in a Lancashire versus Yorkshire game is at the top of the list.
Yes, we’ll have to wait a year for a match in a competition, with Yorkshire being in Tier 2, but I think there’s a friendly or two planned for this summer. And I’m sure they will be very juicy affairs.
I don’t think there’s ever such a thing as a friendly against Yorkshire!
There’s a lot of excitement around as the start of the season gets closer, and we head off on pre-season tour next week to Dubai and India.
This has been Chris Read’s first full winter with us as head coach, having only arrived in January of last year.
Training has had a different feel to it, but in a good way.
I would describe Chris as a really efficient coach. His mantra is, ‘Do things which make the boat go faster’. It’s very much about training smart.
That’s not being in 10 hours a day, it’s about what can you get out of the sessions even if they’re short and sharp? He wants us to have downtime during the winter, but when we’re training it’s very intense. I’ve really enjoyed that.
We travel to Dubai first and then to Bangalore for our pre-season tour.
This is the fourth year in a row that we’ve been out to Dubai and the third we’ve been out to India.
Specifically on India, it’s an amazing place to visit and play cricket in.
I’d say that playing in India is the single most special thing you can do in cricket. The passion they have for the game, you don’t get anywhere else. When you walk down the street, there are hundreds of kids playing cricket. It’s like football in the streets in England but multiplied by one hundred.
It will be my fourth time there, and every time I go I see something different. It’s incredible.
And bowling out there as a spinner is great too. It’s pretty nice to be bowling on those dust bowls.
We’re playing a mixture of T20 and 50-over cricket during our five match-days on tour, against the UAE and a Karnataka State Cricket Association XI.
I know a few of the counties are going to Abu Dhabi and playing against each other, but I love the idea of playing against different teams, which adds something a bit different.
We will be facing a lot more spinners in India, adding a different dimension to just playing against another county.
It’s vital for us that we will be playing a mixture of 50-over and T20 cricket because, this summer, we’ve made it pretty clear as a squad that we’re going for all three titles; the 50-over Cup and the two T20 competitions.
Clearly there are many on-field benefits to this tour, but the off-field stuff is very important as well.
Something we pride ourselves on at Lancs is how close we are as a squad.
You’re not always going to perform, but as long as we stay together as a group then that will go a long way.
And I think so much of that comes from being on tour. The benefits you get from the team bonding side of things and being in India can be massive going forwards.
Confidence is definitely high heading into the new season.
We’ve actually been pretty confident going into a summer for the last couple of years, but it hasn’t really gone our way apart from the T20 Finals Day in 2023. And that’s very disappointing. It was probably just closing out games and a bit of game know-how that we lacked in.
But we’re really determined to put that right this year.
We’ve worked hard on that this winter with game scenarios and such.
Ready is a real thinker about the game, so is Clinton Perrin, our batting coach.
As a group, we’re having more discussions around that type of thing. It’s lovely hitting a beautiful cover drive, but actually how are we going to win games of cricket and what’s going to get us over the line.
I’m really hopefully that we can put that into practice.
It’s obviously been a really challenging winter for the England Women’s team, highlighted by the Ashes at the start of the year.
But I really disagree with a lot of the comments that have been made about there not being a lot of talent coming through to challenge the England players.
I think there’s a lot.
Now we’re going to be better supported by the counties across the board, which is brilliant, hopefully that talent will have a lot more chance to shine.
Also, the England players haven’t really played a lot domestically in recent years. I’d like to think that will change this summer.
Week in, week out, it would be great to be playing against a Nat Sciver-Brunt, an Amy Jones or an Alice Capsey, who are some of the best players in the country. That’s only going to drive the standard up and increase the talent pool more.
Just returning to the topic of India to finish.
Last month, as a Manchester Originals player, I was invited to attend the press conference at Emirates Old Trafford which gave more details on the partnership between Lancashire and the RSPG group for the sale of the Hundred teams.
The Originals are now under the Lucknow Super Giants umbrella.
It was actually a really interesting morning.
Listening to the vice-chair of the RSPG group - Shashwat Goenka - speak about his plans was nice. It was not about them taking over, it was about how much they wanted it to be a partnership with Lancashire.
Our CEO Danny Gidney has always been incredibly passionate about cricket in India, growing that side of things and what can be done for the women’s game. I have no doubts that it will only benefit the women’s game because I’m sure Daniel would have had that at the forefront of his mind as well.
For us as Lancashire and Manchester Originals players, it’s incredibly exciting, and I don’t think I realised just how exciting an opportunity it is until I went to that press conference.
There are talks about renovations around the ground and putting some of that money into the grassroots level and improving the club game around the county, which is massive. That’s what feeds into us and will hopefully make us the best county in the country.
It’s definitely an exciting time for us as players and, overall, as a club.