Davis travels to Port Elizabeth for four-week academy

Mark Davis travelled to Port Elizabeth in South Africa earlier this week to finalise preparations for a four week long Sussex CCC Cricket Academy.

Several Sussex professionals will begin in earnest their own preparation for the 2010 season at the Academy. Keith Greenfield joins Mark this weekend to support as a coach for the first two weeks.

The party is focussed heavily on developing pace bowling talent this year with Ragheb Aga and Chris Liddle heading the squad list. They will be joined by Jordan Rollings from the Academy, and two triallists.

Supporting this group in particular will be James Kirtley who will be working on his own game plus mentoring the younger bowlers in the craft of fast bowling.

The other members of the Academy will be Matt Machan, who has recently joined the staff as a Junior Pro, Jamie Nussbaumer and William Peatfield from our cricketing partnership with Guernsey, Nicholas Lee who played for the MCC Universities in 2009, and Richard Dexter, who is one of the up and coming players within Preston Nomads CC. Last, but by no means least, a young man by the name of Michael Yardy will join for the final two weeks to blow away his winter cobwebs.

This is an exciting new venture for the Club and represents a significant investment in developing our own talent. We will be issuing regular updates on the progress of this Academy, a regular blog from Chris Liddle and some interesting interviews during and after the trip so please keep an eye out on the website for all the very latest information.

Mark Davis said: “This is a good opportunity to get some early cricket in and help the boys focus on developing their core skills. It also provides a good opportunity to take a closer look at some potential new talent that we have identified during the past season. We are very lucky to have to have the facilities of the University of Port Elizabeth to use and we’re looking forward to kicking off our preparations and getting some good cricket practise in.”