Taken from Gloucestershire CCC Website:
No Gloucestershire player is looking forward to the start of next season more than Liam Norwell after a frustrating start to his county career.
The strapping young pace bowler claimed 6-46 in the first innings of the opening LV=County Championship game of this summer against Derbyshire at Bristol on his Gloucestershire debut.
But within a month Liam was sidelined by what proved a stress fracture in his back and the remainder of the season was spent battling to regain full fitness.
Now, with the worst behind him, the 19-year-old product of the club’s Academy (and Redruth CC) is preparing for a busy winter honing his fitness with April very much in mind.
Liam told this website: “The stress fracture has healed. I was still feeling a bit of discomfort at the end of the season, which is why I wasn’t pushed to play again, and it’s now simply a case of working towards next summer.
“I have a winter programme, which has been devised for me, and all being well I will be fit and raring to go come April. I’ll be spending the winter mainly at the ground working with the fitness guys here, who are the best around.
“I was planning to go away and play, but now I am just going to concentrate on getting my back right with a lot of strength and fitness work.
“That isn’t quite as appealing as going to play in Australia, but it is necessary and I’m going to knuckle down to it.
“I did start to bowl again and it went okay. I could bowl maybe three overs at a time, but there is no point in pushing things too quickly with the whole winter ahead so it’s back to basics and strengthening the areas that aren’t quite up to scratch.
“I’m not sure what the coaches have planned for me after that, but I imagine I will start bowling seriously again sometime after Christmas.”
Liam recalls how innocently the injury crept up on him after his impressive start to the 2011 campaign.
“The day before our home game with Northants I felt a bit of discomfort, but thought nothing of it,” he said. “Then during the warm-up for that match my back didn’t feel right so I went and told physiotherapist Steve Griffin.
“I was pulled out of the game. The stress fracture wasn’t diagnosed straight away and it was only in the second set of scans that it showed up.
“It wasn’t very big, but it was enough to cause me discomfort. It’s a very common injury among bowlers and they say it is something that is best got out of the way when you are young. So in some ways I’m glad it has happened to me at 19, rather than a few years down the line.
“I ended up virtually missing the rest of the season. There was an attempt to bring me back just before the end and I went down to Cornwall to play in a club game, only for rain to restrict me to just four overs.
“Then I was going to play in the final second team match, which was limited overs, and that got washed out. There was still an Academy game, but I still wasn’t feeling quite right and ended up playing in that as a batsman.
“It was all hugely frustrating after the start I had made to the season, but at least it came after I had the opportunity to prove myself in the first team and show what I could do.
“Although I missed virtually the whole season, I did show I was capable of stepping up a level from second team cricket and hopefully that I have a future in the game.
“That Derbyshire match seems a very long time ago now. I couldn’t have asked for things to have gone much better because taking six wickets on debut is something most bowlers can only dream about.
“It’s something I shall always remember and I backed it up with a couple of solid performances. Now I need to work on being more consistent in all aspects of my bowling.
“I’d like to think I will be able to bowl genuinely quickly. I still have two or three years to get stronger because the optimum age for a pace bowler is probably 23 or 24.
“In the meantime, I have shown an ability to swing the ball away so I have a couple of variations in my repertoire.
“After what happened to me this summer I just can’t wait to get a Gloucestershire shirt back on and start playing again. The 2012 season promises to be a very exciting one for me.
Everyone at Redruth CC wishes Liam an injury free pre-season and a prosperous 2012 campaign!
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