Northants batters and bowlers gearing up for pre-season with a difference

​In recent years, the whole County squad has headed abroad as one for warm-weather training camps.

They have headed for places such as Barbados and Singapore, and for the past two years the Northants players have made the trip to South Africa, where they have mixed training with playing matches against other touring counties as well as local teams.

But head coach John Sadler admits he felt last year's trip to Cape Town 'failed to tick any box' for him or his players, so he has decided to change things up for 2024.

Instead of the squad travelling as a whole, the batters and bowlers will this year travel abroad for specific training camps, with the players heading out to different countries at the end of February and into early March.

There will be a batting group jetting off to one location, which is set to be Mumbai in India, while the bowling group will also be heading off to warmer climes.

"We are going to do the pre-season tours a little bit differently this year," said Sadler.

"We are going to have a bowling camp and also a batting camp.

"I felt on the last tour in particular, we didn't quite tick any box.

"We didn't quite get enough volume of practice, we didn't get enough competition, and we didn't get enough specific training for what everybody needed.

"As the season then unfolded, you look back and reflect on what can we do better? What can we do differently? And looking back on the pre-season tour I felt we didn't quite get anything out of it.

"So this time we are going to send the batters off and they are going to be batting for two or three hours a day for 10 days.

"While the bowlers will go and get some warm weather training as well, linking up with the new bowling coach.

"We have a couple of options on that at the moment, but there will be a specific camp for both disciplines, and then when we come back we will then have time together to go through plans, and how we want to play our cricket.

"That will give us that togetherness as well, so we are doing things differently this year."

New batting coach Greg Smith will take the batters under his wing in India, and get the chance to really get down to work for prolonged periods, and it will be a similar story for the as yet unnamed bowling coach.

And Sadler added: "I know the batters are really excited about going.

"They are excited about getting some serious volume in, and the bowlers obviously getting out to warmer climates is always an easy sell.

"It will be specific training, the players will get exactly what they need, and then we will come back and get together as a unit by around mid-March."

The County begin their LV= Insurance County Championship Division Two campaign with a trip to take on Sussex on Friday, April 5.