COVERED SPRING 2021

13 JOIN OUR MAILING LIST FOR ALL THE LATEST: TRENTBRIDGE.CO.UK/MAILINGLIST TOM MOORES “THE KEY THING FOR ME IS: HOW CAN I IMPACT AND WIN GAMES FOR NOTTS? AND THAT’S ACROSS ALL FORMATS.” Tom Moores “I feel like I’ve got a lot to prove in red-ball cricket, but that was an innings which showed how I want to go about that format of the game,” he says. “There was a bit of digging in at first to get through a tough period, when it was not about scoring quickly but about battling on when the momentum wasn’t with us. “Then as we got through that I earned the right to expand my game, play some aggressive shots and put the pressure back on them. “That’s the brand of cricket that I want to build on in the red-ball game. “There might be different situations, surfaces and oppositions, and I might need to find different techniques and ways of going about my game, but my ultimate goal is to make it difficult for a team to get one up on me. “I feel like that innings was a real turning point for me, and something to build on into next season. “The focus is on being able to deliver whatever the team require from me at any given moment. “The key thing for me is: how can I impact and win games for Notts? And that’s across all formats.” Later, as I listen back to our chat, it is that last phrase that leaps out repeatedly. Countless times, Moores talks about ‘impacting’ games of cricket, as much a personal mantra as an answer to a question. For this man, a child of a cricketing family but a product of an all-format era, that is an impact that can be made whatever the situation. Not for him the binary choices that the game can try to impose – from the days of gentlemen vs. players to coloured clothing and the growth of the white-ball game. For Moores, there is no conflict.Why not work on making your mark in the red-ball game, that version of the sport that nurtured your forefathers, while also releasing your inhibitions and opening your shoulders in the limited-overs game? Why not enjoy the history, soak up the present, and eagerly await the future? He may be respectful of the lineage that he continues, and enraptured by his heroes from years gone by, but Tom Moores is very much his own man. Whatever comes next for him will certainly be worth watching.