Prepare to succeed

When preparing for a T20, I never bowl at batsmen. I have quite a rigid routine that I go through – I’ll bowl a certain amount of back-of-the-hand slower balls, a certain amount of cutters, a certain amount of hard- length balls. Once I’m happy that I’ve got enough of them where I want them, I’ll move on to my yorkers. I put a pad down on the crease and I don’t stop until I hit it a certain number of times.

That’s my routine. I know that if I’ve prepared in a world-class way then I can walk out onto the pitch with confidence. Whatever happens, I can walk out there feeling there’s not a lot more I could have done in practice.

The mental aspect

Those people who criticise T20 as ‘crash, bang, wallop’ really don’t understand the game. You think significantly more as a cricketer, with bat or ball, in a T20 game than you do during a Championship match. You’re constantly thinking about where a batsman’s trying to hit you and trying to stay one step ahead of them.

For a Championship match, you bowl a length ball and you bowl a bouncer – that’s pretty much it. You might also hang it outside off but 90 per cent of the time you’re trying to bowl top of off stump. It’s a game of attrition and you just transfer into a rhythm and bowl a good area. T20 cricket is a lot more intense mentally. In order to survive, you need so much more control.

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[caption id=”attachment_114937″ align=”alignnone” width=”800″] Gurney played 10 ODIs and two T20Is for England in 2014[/caption]

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Communication with your captain

I often watch T20s on Sky and the commentators are saying, ‘The captain’s telling him to do this, the captain’s telling him to do that’, but that isn’t the way I operate at all. I will go to the captain and say, ‘Look, this is my Plan A this is my Plan B – what do you reckon?’ And then I’ll set my own field accordingly. You do it in conjunction with the captain and maybe with another senior player.

[caption id=”attachment_114938″ align=”alignnone” width=”800″] Gurney played for the Melbourne Renegades in the 2018/19 Big Bash[/caption]

There are still some teams around the world where the captain literally does everything and tells the bowler where to bowl but I was taught from a very young age at Leicestershire that I would be expected to know exactly what field I wanted, to be able to communicate that to the captain and then deliver.