Why Surrey have been so good for me: Maynard

By Mark Pennell

Surrey batsman Tom Maynard is ready to make the next step up in his burgeoning career after a successful first season and two months in south London.

Indeed, since joining Surrey from his native Glamorgan for the start of the 2011 season, following the Welsh county's sacking of their head coach Matthew Maynard, his father, Maynard junior’s stock has risen dramatically. A quick comparison between his averages for Glamorgan to those at Surrey reveal that marked and rapid improvement.

In his 24-match first-class career at Glamorgan, Maynard scored 727 runs at a modest average of 21 and with a highest score of 98. In his opening 23 first-class starts for Surrey, he has hit four hundreds, posted an impressive aggregate of 1,635 runs and all at the eye-catching average of 44.18.
 
“I think those figures just go to prove what a difficult time I was having at Glamorgan,” said Maynard. "Looking back on it now, I see that period as my apprenticeship, a time when I just tried to cram as much knowledge into my head about cricket as I could.

"I learned a lot in those 24 games, but it was also a pretty tough time for me after my dad left the club. A few things happened there that I didn’t like to see and I knew afterwards that I had to leave.
 
“The fact that they were tricky times just made me work harder and that hard work has paid off big time since I moved to Surrey. I think the Oval is a fantastic place to play your cricket as a top-order batsman and, for all sorts of reasons, the move couldn’t have worked out much better than it has for me.
 
“The guys here have made me feel really at home and of course it helps that it is generally a young squad, so there’s really good group camaraderie. We get on really well on the pitch, but we’re equally keen to meet up off the field, which is pretty rare these days.”

Maynard is also looking forward to the start of the Friends Life t20 competition, for which Surrey will be one of the favourites with their powerful batting line-up and, in overseas players Dirk Nannes and Murali Kartik, two of the best Twenty20 bowlers in the world game.

Surrey are, of course, defending their Clydesdale Bank 40 title this season too after beating Somerset at Lord's last September in the final of that competition. It was Maynard's first taste of winning silverware in his professional career and, he says, it has given both himself and the youthful Surrey team an extra dash of confidence as they chase more domestic honours this summer.




Date: 05/06/2012 15:45:09 by Mark Pennell
In: Today | Surrey |