Glamorgan captain Chris Cooke believes his side have the potential to cause upsets in a strong group during the Bob Willis Trophy.
With four of the six teams in the group set to play in Division 1 of the 2021 County Championship, and perennial contenders Somerset the first opponents, Cooke thinks that the squad’s preparation leaves them in a good place ahead of the start of the season.
“We’ve got four Division One teams in our group," said Cooke. "It’s a good test for us and people won’t be expecting a lot from us but we’ll be expecting a lot from ourselves. We’ve had a good month and a lot of guys are in form.
“We’ve had a good month of preparations, everyone’s very excited to get going, we’ve got 15 games this season and a lot to play for.”
While the players begin to shake off the rust from their enforced layoffs, the skipper was impressed with the efforts from the players in that time and reckons that it will stand them in good stead for their upcoming fixtures.
“Everyone did quite a lot of S&C work during lock-down, so everyone was quickly up to speed when we got going again.
“Although it’s a compressed season, all the normal disciplines apply, it’s still a normal game of cricket and we just want to treat as normal as possible.”
With a palpable buzz at every training session and intra-squad game, there will be an electric atmosphere from the players when they get to step out to field at Taunton and Cooke has no worries about motivating his side for the game and season to come.
“Enthusiasm won’t be an issue – I may have to try calm it down a bit, everyone will be up for it! I just want everyone to show a lot of fight.
“The form book will go out the window this year. It’s a season where anything can happen, and there’s two trophies up for grabs.”