Schofield Satisfied

30 November 2009

Chris Schofield has called on the current crop of Surrey youngsters to combine with this winter’s new arrivals and push on to ensure improved results in 2010.

Schofield was almost an ever present for the Brown Caps during 2009, scoring his debut first-class century against Essex in Colchester and being judged by the Professional Cricketers Association as the Club’s Most Valuable Player throughout the season, an honour he particularly earned with his performances in all forms of One Day cricket.

“I had a great year”, Schofield told Surrey TV recently. “Unfortunately the team didn’t do as well as we would have liked but we’re in a bit of a transition period and had a good chance to see a lot of youngsters. Obviously with the signings over the winter we can increase the squad and hopefully perform a lot better than we did last year.”

Another huge benefit for Schofield was the regularity of his selection in all forms of the game, giving an opportunity to get more time in the middle than he has ever been able to experience.

“At the start of the year I spoke to the management and they said I was going to be part of the first-team squad for the season and I think I just missed one game”, he said.

“That was great for me because for the past ten years I’ve played cricket I’ve always missed the start of the season due to weather, green seamers and playing an extra fast bowler so to be involved in every single game was a great achievement for me.”

Alongside Andre Nel, the experienced Schofield is now one of the senior bowlers within the squad and continued to say that his cricket is thriving under the responsibility placed on him by Chris Adams.

“To look at the youngsters that were coming through and to give them a helping hand knowing they were going to be part of the squad and the team for years to come, it was good to get to know them and there’s a lot of talent out there”, he said.

Although Schofield experienced success with the ball in One Day cricket, he did add that he would have liked a bigger heap of wickets from the LV Championship.

“I would have liked to get more Championship wickets”, he admitted. “It was great to get five at Wantage Road [against Northamptonshire] but in Championship cricket there were a lot of draws with both teams scoring 500+ so it was mainly batting tracks that were very difficult to bowl on.”

Another key role Schofield played in 2009 was with the bat and you find out how he improved himself so much over the 2008/9 winter, how he felt about scoring his maiden first-class century against Essex and the advice he was given by Chris Adams that has improved batting even further by watching the Surrey TV video at the top of this article.

To watch the video, click ‘Play Video’ in the top left hand corner of the picture at the top of this article.

Surrey TV have also been behind the scenes with players again this week. Click here to see " Take Two " of the Chris Schofield interview