It’s been a few months since Matt Maynard returned to Glamorgan to help boost the county’s batting line-up.
After an eight-year spell away from the club, Maynard was brought in as a consultant batting coach under the leadership of Head Coach Robert Croft, with the mandate of working with the county’s first team and young batting talent.
Having spent the winter with the squad at the county’s National Cricket Centre, working tirelessly with the batsman on their techniques and mental approach to batting, he believes it was the perfect time for him to come back to the club he called home for 20 years.
"The timing is just right to have the opportunity to come back to Glamorgan," he explains.
"They've got a great bunch of young Welsh players and during the most successful period of the club, we started very similar — in the mid to late 1980s — it was a similar group of players.
"But until Viv Richards arrived, we didn't get that hardness of play. Viv transformed it with the mentality and that lasted another 10 years.
"So now I've got the opportunity now to instil that in these young players and give them belief. That's why the timing really fits good.
"All coaches are mentors and we get involved because we want to see those young players develop. It gives me huge satisfaction, but private satisfaction. You're not getting that adulation you look for as a player.”
It was a mixed-season for Glamorgan in 2017; they thrived in the white-ball game, reaching Finals Day in the T20 Blast, but were disappointing in the Specsavers County Championship, where they finished seventh.
They did however defeat a strong Kent side in Canterbury on the final day of the season with a team that contained seven Academy graduates and Glamorgan’s highest ever century-maker is confident the talent is there to see the team thrive again in red-ball cricket.
“We’ve seen a number of young players break into the first team over the last couple of years which is a very positive thing for the club,” said Maynard.
“Lukas Carey is only 20 and very good with the new ball. He is a hugely exciting player, as a number of the players, like Andrew Salter, Kieran Bull, Owen Morgan are from a spin perspective.
“From the batting angle, Aneurin Donald had an unbelievable knock in Colwyn Bay a few years ago. If he starts respecting the game and the opposition bowlers and realising that he can’t just go out and play a one-day innings or T20 innings every single time he goes out to bat then in four-day cricket he could fly, he really could.
“The work that we did before he went to South Africa, it was really encouraging he seems to have really got his head down, understands what myself, Adrian Shaw have been telling him, he is starting to grasp the game.
“Kiran Carlson is a really good prospect, as is Connor Brown- very strong good batters, good array of shots and that’s the way the modern game is going.
“I haven’t seen Nick Selman as yet, but he is obviously very promising at the top of the order. He has had a good start to his career and I like the look of David Lloyd - he is a fellow North Walian and I feel as though he’s got some fight about him.
“There is a lot to be excited about at the club at present.”