Young fast bowler, Stuart Meaker, Surrey’s latest addition to the squad has spent the last ten days in Sri Lanka with the England under 19s, in preparation for the World Cup.

Here on www.surreycricket.com Meaker is keeping us up to date with his tour blog. He writes:

We are now just over ten days into our pre-World Cup tour of Sri Lanka. I feel as though I am fully recovered after the two days of sleepless travel at the beginning of the trip. The squad seem to have adjusted to the heat well, although we are already on our way to developing those sleeveless vest tan-lines that Englishmen are famous for!

At the start of the tour, we focused on “pre-hab” which is all about preparing yourself for playing in a different climate as well as for the amount of cricket we have coming up. It is based around cardio fitness and net sessions. I really felt that it helped me, particularly kick starting me into shape to work off the impact of some of the Christmas and New Year excesses.

After the initial training, we worked towards a practice match against the Sri Lanka under 19 side. Although it was a practice match, we played it hard because the squad wanted to get the tour off to a winning start. We managed exacty that, by scoring a little over 300 runs before bowling them out for 152.Their innings was interrupted with rain but they still fell short when needing 163 for victory. I managed a brief three over run out in the game, as part of my rehabilitation from my recent stress fracture injury which, fingers crossed, seems to have fully recovered. Picking up two for 20 was very pleasing considering I only started back off my full run the week before we flew out.

Following our match against Sri Lanka under 19s the pre-World Cup tour really got underway with a triangular One Day series against Pakistan and Sri-Lanka. We felt that it would be a good gauge on our performance as Pakistan have won the last two under 19 World Cups. It was decided by the medical team and management that I should rest for the series to allow my body to recover fully. Although really disappointed I knew that it was for the best and it meant that I could really work on my fitness and form as well as cheer on the lads.

We had a great result in the match against Pakistan as we recovered from 44 for five to post a respectable 213 – thanks largely to Ben Brown who scored an unbeaten 93. In the field we were electric, stopping the Pakistan batters from ever getting away. Liam Dawson picked up brilliant figures of three for 47 as we romped to our second victory.

We have had a little bit of a break over the last couple of days but have a couple of important matches coming up. I will keep you posted on how we get on.

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