Abu Dhabi, UAE – Gavin Hoey, the Leinster Lightning leg-spin bowler, spoke from the team hotel ahead of the Men's ODI series between Ireland and South Africa starting on Wednesday.
On taking up leg-spin - one of cricket’s hardest arts: "I was always a seamer growing up - and then just before covid I had a stress fracture in my back. So then I just decided to bowl a few leggies with my Dad during lockdown. We worked on them during Covid and they started coming out well. It’s a tricky art. You have some good days, and you have some bad days. You just have to try not get too low when you get whacked and try and ride the form when you get into it."
On his current priorities: "Leg-spin is definitely the priority at the moment. I’ve been working a lot with Chris Brown for the last year or so since our tour to Nepal with the Wolves and he’s been brilliant. Batting has taken really a secondary part but you’ve still got to keep going with it. [Overall] the training is excellent, like it’s definitely a level up from how I’ve been training before in intensity and everything. Like I said, working with the best coaches in the country has been really brilliant."
On leg-spin idols: "Dad was a handy old leggie, so I’ve got somebody to talk to about it the whole time. I like all the good leg-spinners, I try to take bits and pieces when I’m watching them, see what they do well and see if I can implement it. Like Adil Rashid, Adam Zampa – those are the kind of guys you watch and you try to figure out what they’re doing really well."
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