The University of Glasgow’s cricket squad is hopeful for promotion this season after appointing a new head coach.
Following a disappointing campaign last time out, anticipation for the upcoming BUCS season builds as the University of Glasgow cricket looks for promotion. With a strengthened squad, improved training schedule, and a newly appointed 1XI head coach, club captain Tom Mullin is excited for the season ahead.
Speaking about his goals for the season, club captain Tom said: “We’ve got a really strong squad this year. A lot of players were retained from last year and some new lads who joined this year made picking the squad a difficult job. We had to choose quite a big squad because it was impossible for us to leave any one of the boys out. I think this gives us a great chance at winning the BUCS league this year when it comes around in April. With a squad as strong and as deep as the one that we have, we are aiming high, setting ourselves the target of winning the league and earning promotion to the BUCS Northern premier division.”
One of the toughest games for the Glasgow team this year will undoubtedly be St Andrews 1XI, who were relegated from the Northern Premier division last year after not winning a game. The newly promoted Dundee will also be a dark horse in the league after taking the Scottish division two sides to the sword last season remaining undefeated.
Last year was the first competitive fixture for the club in three years following the pandemic. After a slow start, losing convincingly to Stirling, the team finished mid-table. Reflecting on the season Tom said that: “As a team, we should have done a lot better than we did last year, so I think there was a lot to think about going into this season. A large part was bringing a higher degree of professionalism to the team which so far has gone well, with our new coach and our commitment as a squad to doing as well as we can. Individually we have all set ourselves targets for training and match performances to work towards which will hopefully improve on-field performances too. A big thing for us going into this season as well is being able to train outdoors as soon as possible to give us the best possible preparation for match play, which was weather-prevented, so fingers crossed for this year.”
The Glasgow team faces a unique challenge as the only Scottish University that fields a cricket team to have no training facilities at the University. Despite this Tom reassures that following the lessons learnt from last year preparation has improved going into the upcoming season: “There is definitely a lot more thought being put into the preparation for this season compared to last year, a lot of which is down to bringing in a new coach for our 1st XI. With extra training for the 1st team, targeted coaching sessions and setting ourselves a proper target for the season, we’re giving ourselves the best chance that we can to win our league. We have also partnered with Hillhead Cricket Club for some extra training sessions against players that we aren’t as familiar with to give ourselves practice in different scenarios and against different players.”
GUCC begin their campaign on 26 April at West of Scotland Cricket Club against Aberdeen 1XI.
