INTERVIEW: Chris Benbow previews the Boys' Academy season
Chris Benbow, Lancashire’s head of talent pathway, looks ahead to the new summer with excitement and says of the players’ development: "They're all trending in the right direction and heading to where we want them to be.”
Benbow is leading the development of nine teenagers on the boys’ Academy at Emirates Old Trafford - the county’s best Under 18s players - while just below them performance manager Stephen Titchard is looking after the eight-strong Emerging Players Programme (best at Under 16s).
Benbow has recently taken the Academy group on a five-day pre-season trip to Desert Springs in Spain, where the men’s first team also toured last month.
“It was good,” he said of the trip. “We had four full days there, and on the day we landed we also did a couple of hours fielding just to get the flight out of our legs.
“We generally go away every other year. We went to Sri Lanka a couple of years ago, and that was a great trip.
“But the difference with this one was the timing. When we went to Sri Lanka, it was February half-term. When we came back, we were back into the Indoor School for a six-eight week block.
“Going to Desert Springs only a week or so ago, it means we could get the lads straight outside when we got back.”
With everything on site at Desert Springs, and with pitch conditions more akin to what you would find in April and May in England, it is becoming an increasingly popular destination for pre-season tours and training camps.
This winter, even more so given what has been going on politically around the world.
“When we got there, the nets we had on the first day, they'd been used by a school for a couple of days, so they were a little bit worn,” said Benbow. “But they were more conducive to April, early May conditions.
“They were a little bit stoppy, which was quite nice. Certainly that first morning, it was quite a big challenge for the batters, who had just come from the Indoor School, which is as flat as it’s ever going to be.
“The last three days of practice that we had, we then had two brand-new pitches with quite a lot of grass on. So they were quick, quite lively.
“Then, on the very last day, I asked them to take a little bit more grass off, so they really matched up with what we get over here.”
Benbow continued: “The lads we went out there with, and we took Charlie Barnard and Ollie Sutton with us as seniors, we went with an intent of not just to have almost driving range practice, not to just have a net.
“So the lads bought into a little bit of consequence, which gradually got deeper and deeper as the days went on.
“It started off with, ‘You get out and you sit out for a song’. Then, the very last session, ‘You've got a 50-minute session, 20 minutes is yours. But if you're out, you might miss out on half an hour's worth of batting’.
“To be fair to them, they all bought into it and admitted that it does bring some nervousness to practice.”
Lancashire are preparing for a season which will see the Academy play in three ECB competitions, T20, the one-day knockout County Cup and the three-day Championship.
Last summer, they shared the T20 title with Somerset following an abandoned final, they finished top of their Championship group and were beaten in the second round of the 50-over knockout cup.
“The season generally tries to match what the first-team season looks like,” said Benbow. “And they get a good mix of red and white-ball cricket.
“We have a brilliant three days at York and Clifton Alliance at the end of May (26-28) to play in T20 group stage with all the other northern counties.
“Then we have the knockout 50-over competition, which is just something a bit different. The lads don’t play a lot of knockout cricket. A bit with their clubs, but not masses.
“The element of going to a national county with the potential of getting knocked out first round, that’s quite an exciting dynamic for me.
“Then, and I think I’ve said this before, the pinnacle of our season is the three-day Championship from the back end of July to the start of September. We’ve had great success in that over the last two or three years.
“We’re very excited about what the summer has in store for us.
“We’ve played some good cricket, and it goes down to the work the lads put in.
“I think they know when the peaks of the season are, when they need to be on and what that looks like.
“But they're also getting more and more aware of what the demands of second-team cricket look like.
“We're not necessarily building their skillset to be successful at Under-18s cricket. It’s perhaps more that they've got their sights on what second-team cricket looks like because that’s the next stop that they’re working towards.
“By doing that, it just means they’re ready to compete when they come up against better opposition.
“That’s the priority, the work they’re putting in. It’s not necessarily the success of those teams. Although, the perfect scenario is we get the best of both worlds.”
Lancashire have had good recent national representation at the likes of the Under 15s Bunbury Festival and the Under 18s Super 4s. On top of that, Joe Moores and Luke Hands went to the Under 19s World Cup with England over the winter. Moores is on a senior rookie professional contract, while Hands is part of the Academy.
On the Academy, five players have been retained from last year. All-rounder Hands is one, in addition to Haider Hussain, Charlie Parkinson, George Harris and Rian Maisuria.
New inductees are wicketkeeper-batter Freddie Vaughan-Hawkins from Timperley, Chester Boughton Hall batter Liam Yahathugoda, seam-bowling all-rounder Ieuan Morris from Alvanley and fast bowler George Brown from Leigh.
On the new lads, Benbow added: “Freddie is a wicketkeeper-batter who has come over from Cheshire, and he’s trending quite nicely.
“George Brown is a bowler with genuine pace. He's consistently in and around 83-84mph, so he's quite exciting.
“Then we've two under-17s who we’ve brought on from being a part of our under-16s cup-winning group last year.
“Liam Yahathugoda is a left-handed top-order batter and a destructive white-ball batter as well. He also bowls some decent off-spin.
“He was the top-scorer in the country for the Under 16s last summer (560 runs, 14 matches). So he's quite an exciting prospect.
“And Ieuan Morris. He’s a lower order batter and someone who bowls with decent pace and is a consistent performer with the ball. He plays at Sophie Ecclestone’s club, and he’s someone we have high hopes for as well.
“The new lads, they’ve all settled in very nicely.”
;