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Hampshire’s Joe Weatherley Appointed England Under 19s Captain
Hampshire’s Joe Weatherley Appointed England Under 19s Captain
Batsman is relishing the prospect of leading his Hampshire team-mates
Joe Weatherley has been appointed captain for the England under-19s tour of Australia and is relishing the prospect of leading his Hampshire team-mates Brad Taylor and Mason Crane – especially after a masterclass from Alastair Cook.
Weatherley, an 18-year-old opening batsman from Winchester who is preparing for his A-levels at King Edward VI School at Southampton, met Cook for the first time at a pre-tour training camp at the National Cricket Performance Centre in Loughborough.
I didn’t know then that I would be captain so it was more in terms of opening the batting that meeting Alastair Cook was so valuable, he spoke to us all about what was going through his mind when he was batting, and the great thing was he did it in a way we could all relate to. He was really down to earth and genuine.
The whole camp at Loughborough was great preparation, both for the Australia tour and the other challenges we have coming up over the next year, with a home series against Australia in the summer and then a World Cup in Bangladesh. It was hard at times but it’s banked for us as a group now, and hopefully we can draw on that when things get tough.
I was looking forward to the tour anyway and the captaincy is an added dimension. I’ve done quite a lot of age group captaincy, and spoken to quite a few different people about it including Cook and Andy Flower in Loughborough. Obviously this will be a different level, but I’m really looking forward to it. It will be good to see where we are against the Aussies, because the under-19s haven’t been down there for quite a while.
Joe Weatherley, Hampshire U19's
Weatherley, who has a good sporting pedigree as his father Ken played tennis at Wimbledon, is delighted to be one of three Hampshire youngsters on the tour.
The other two are both spinners. Taylor turned 18 on Saturday and is already a Hampshire record-holder having made a surprise first-team debut against Lancashire in 2013, and Crane is originally from Sussex but has been in the Hampshire system for a while after being spotted by the former county stalwart Raj Maru.
