Luke Wood believes he’s adapting well to First XI cricket after again being named in the squad for the LV= County Championship match against Sussex starting tomorrow.

The 19-year-old could be joined in the bowling unit by two fellow homegrown pace bowlers, Brett Hutton and Jake Ball, after Vernon Philander’s recent recall by Cricket South Africa.

Wood admits his rise to first team cricket came faster than he expected but, after claiming 11 wickets at an average of 24.72 to date, the teenager is now targeting a match-winning contribution against the men from the south coast.

“I thought I might get the odd game in the first team, but mainly I was focused on doing well in the second team and, if I got the chance, take it.

“I didn’t expect to be in the side this early, but I’ve been pretty happy with how it’s been going. It’s made me reassess my goals for the rest of the season.

“I feel like I’ve proved a lot to myself by playing well. Hopefully I can keep that up, become a permanent fixture within the squad and the team, and keep taking wickets.

“I am a bit of a stat man so I do quite like to look at what’s happening from that point of view, and I’m pretty happy with what’s happened so far.

“Hopefully that continues and I’ll be in a good position come the end of the season.

“I’d love to get a first five-fer under my belt and also in due time score a fifty with the bat. To make a big contribution would be great and that’s what I’m aiming to do.”

Nottinghamshire Director of Mick Newell has recalled Alex Hales in place of the injured Chris Read, with Brendan Taylor and Riki Wessels providing a duo of options with the gloves. 

With the ball, Will Gidman and Brett Hutton are the two members of the 12-man party that didn’t feature against Somerset – a game in which Wood admitted the side’s first innings bowling cost them.

“Our bowling in the first innings wasn’t as good as we would have liked it to have been. They got 70 more runs, maybe even a bit more, than we would have liked them to get,” he said.

“Then we did well to get up to 200 and in the second innings we bowled much better, but then with the batting we didn’t quite hit our straps.

“It was a bit of mixed performance and that’s probably why we came out of the game on the losing side.”

Although now a fixture in the four-day side, Wood has sat out each of the Club’s three NatWest T20 Blast matches to date.

And while the left-armer harbours long-term ambitions to play all three formats, he is currently content to focus on LV= County Championship cricket.

“My ambition is to play all formats at some point,” said Wood.

“Some people do it one way around, some people to it the other way around. Some go from white ball to red ball, others go red to white.

“I’m more a red ball bowler at the minute but hopefully I can develop more white ball skills so, over the course of time, I can break into those teams and be ready to play.

“I’m quite happy playing with the red ball at the moment and working on those skills, so I don’t want to rush into it.”

Nottinghamshire squad to face Sussex (from): Jake Ball, Will Gidman, Harry Gurney, Alex Hales, Brett Hutton, Steven Mullaney, Samit Patel, Greg Smith, Brendan Taylor, James Taylor, Riki Wessels, Luke Wood.

 

 

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