Association of Cricket Officials | Page 22

Young Officials Russell Evans provides an insight into his pre-season preparation. One of the more frequent questions our Young Officials ask is: ‘How do the professional umpires prepare for the season?’ ECB ACO has, therefore, asked First Class umpire Russell Evans to give a brief overview of what he does in the off-season. We hope that you find this of interest and it gives you some ideas for your own preparations. ‘I am often asked “what do First Class umpires do during the winter”. Firstly, we are fortunate enough to Russell Evans be employed for the full year, so this takes any pressures off home life. The ICC boys obviously continue to umpire around the world. Some of the lads have their own businesses, others work (Neil Bainton continues as a postman), others enjoy the break, travel etc. ‘Another popular question is “How do you prepare for the season?” Having completed my inaugural full First Class season last year, the first thing I did was enjoy a family holiday. As umpires, we are away a lot during the summer months, so it was great to have quality family time. Preparation for me for the 2016 season started in October 2015 as I joined the local gym. Chris Watts and his better half to-be kindly put together a daily programme for me which is a mixture of weights and cardio work, which takes around an hour per day, five days per week. I also mix this with bike rides with the dogs, swimming and running. I’m an 22 early morning person as my son is a good swimmer, so he’s in the pool most mornings for 6am and the gym opens at 6.30am, so it’s a great start to the day…honest! ‘Fitness, for me, is key to enable me to do the job. I’m not talking about running marathons or doing triathlons, but a typical week will include an 11k run, a mile swim, and bike rides with Millnsy (David Millns) around Sherwood Forest of up to 30 miles – getting the yards in the legs during the winter certainly helps on day four at 4pm. ‘We also do winter workshops, which are organised by the boss, Chris Kelly. This year, Chris has split the Laws and regulations up, put us in teams, and we have presented our findings. We have not simply read out the Laws. Each group has taken aspects of the Laws/regulation given and discussed various scenarios, enhanced by videos, which has been brilliant, as there have been some excellent discussions as to what is right, wrong or simply a judgement call. We have had two winter workshops so far, with another one in March. ‘We also have a pre-season meeting and fitness test which are in March, just before the hectic season starts. During the season it is more difficult to keep up the gym/fitness work, as I’m sure all of you umpires know. Standing on the field and concentrating is tiring, so when you get back to the hotel around 7.30–8pm you have to motivate yourself to do the necessary. ‘Best wishes to all ACO officials for 2016 and I hope to see many of you on the circuit.’ Thanks to Russell for taking the time to offer us his experience. Hopefully we will hear more from the First Class list in future issues of this magazine. e-mail us at [email protected] contact us on 0121 446 2710