Durston happy with Derbyshire’s pre-season start

The full squad spent their first day of pre-season with the club’s official partners, the University of Derby, and took advantage of the new sports centre at the university complex.

The players were back in the Elite Performance Centre at The 3aaa County Ground the following day, and Durston, the club’s NatWest T20 Blast and Royal London One-Day Cup captain believes preparations have started well.

“It is good to be back and good to see the boys again,” Durston said. “We have all come in looking to hit the ground running.

“We have had our fitness testing, which is always a challenge at this time of the year after five weeks off. I thought the testing went really well for the team, and the first full day of training was great.

“It was good to see everyone in the nets. The batsmen were hitting balls again and the bowlers were getting some bowling in early on.

“We have had some time with our fielding coach, Cookie Patel, who was putting us through our paces, as well as our strength and conditioning coach, Jamie Tallent, who has helped us with the weights and the fitness. It has been a good first two days.

“I was very impressed with the facilities at the University of Derby, which are just what we need.

“We already gearing up towards the New Year and we want to have the best pre-season possible, so that we are ready to go in April. We want to leave nothing to chance and be the best prepared team in the country.”