11 Nov 2015 | Cricket
The Glamorgan first team squad might not have reported back for the long winter pre-season yet but the young players selected on this year's Glamorgan Development Programme are into their third week ahead of the 2016 season already.
Head of Talent Development Richard Almond welcomed the squad back, with the majority retained from last year and some new additions.
It's an exciting time with the group of players we have in the Development programme and it's a pretty talented group, commented Richard.
We've added four new really good players this year, so all in all we've got 15 talented boys and 6 girls this year so a group of 21 to work with, with some exceptional talent in there making it an exciting time for them and the club.
As well as selecting the best talent from within Wales, Glamorgan have extended their scouting reach in recent seasons to search for the best talent at age grade level as well as those ready for the first team.
We've got a wide ranging scouting programme now, added Almond, we obviously look through our own age groups in terms of Wales, but also through our Head Scout, we have connections with a lot of the public schools over the bridge and the Minor Counties and through his scouting network we've picked up a couple of players from outside of Wales this year.
Luke Cheshire is one of the new additions, along with Ella Reed, Tom Bevan and Kazi Symanski.
Cheshire is a left arm seamer who was born in England and moved to Australia for 10 years and who was involved in the Western Australia programme, before recently returned to these shores.
The 16 year old left arm seamer describes his style as 'medium-fast' who doesn't bowl too quick but swings it quite a bit to get it in the right places, whilst he's looking forward to the British conditions which should suit his style much better than in Australia, with a bit more in the pitches for seam bowlers.
Describing how he joined Glamorgan, Luke confirmed Glamorgan's proactive approach to recruitment, My family decided we were going to move back, so we arrived back in July living in Oxfordshire. Because I was playing state cricket in Australia they contacted the ECB and Kevin Lyons then got in contact and came down to watch me against Bucks and I bowled alright - I think I took 4/4 so he told me to come down and play a game for Glamorgan with these boys and it's built from there.
Glamorgan offered me a contract at a game when I was actually playing for Sussex which was quite good so I took that.
I traveled with the Western Australia under-15s side in June and I took a few wickets and broke some records then made the Australia under-16s side, but unfortunately I couldn't play as we moved back here.
I'm hoping this is going to be a stepping stone for the future, the goal is to make it as a professional but we'll see where it goes from here, and hopefully have a good season next year and keep playing well and hopefully push for some games with the Twos.
Last year, a number of the older players had chances to play Second XI cricket, with Kiran Carlson notably performing very well in Cardiff against Leicestershire scoring 150, but he was not alone in this kind of opportunity.
The older ones amongst the group had a fair bit of second team cricket last year and some of them did very well, noted Richard Almond.
It's an individual thing in terms of how they develop and we try as hard as we can to get them ready as fast as possible as we'd like them to be pushing for first-team places as early as possible so the more they get experiences in the second team and to train with our staff boys the quicker they will be ready for the highest level.
We're looking to integrate the older group with the first team as often as we can this winter, so they train in staff sessions and play second team cricket.
A number of players have managed to make the step up to first team cricket in recent seasons, with development contracts such as Kieran Bull and Jeremy Lawlor and others have progressed further with the likes of Aneurin Donald and Dewi Penrhyn Jones signing professional terms at the end of 2015 and following the footsteps of Andrew Salter and Ruaidhri Smiith to name two.
For those players who don't get to a contract when they leave the Development Programme it doesn't mean the
end of the cricket career as Almond explains, We've got a really good relationship with Cardiff MCCU and the majority of the players that have exited our programme in recent years have ended up on the MCCU programme which is a good opportunity to carry on with their cricket development and it gives them another three or four years in the shop window.
It's a good exit scheme for us as not everyone can be ready for a contract by the time they are 18 so this gives them a few more years to push their case and develop as a cricketer and as a person at the same time as getting an educational qualification as well.
Talent like Aneurin doesn't come along too often, but he is certainly one who is looking like he is doing really well, getting in to the first team and making a contribution straight away so we are pleased with him and hopefully we will get a few more like him in the coming years.