Training through a chilly, sunless off-season takes commitment at the best of times so spare a thought for Rosemary Mair. As the only Central Hind living east of the Ruahines, 20-year-old Rosemary — who made her WHITE FERNS debut last summer — doesn’t have the luxury of a bunch of teammates to help push her through the early morning runs up Napier Hill and gym sessions.
But with a shot at making New Zealand’s squad for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in early 2020, there’s no time to waste. Here’s how Rosemary’s getting set for another big summer of cricket.
The Lonely Hind!! Tell us how it’s going on this lovely brisk July Bay day…
ROSEMARY MAIR: Yeah, it’s a bit cool! Haha, I’m not very good at doing cold weather! But I’ve been training with Aldin (Smith, CDCA coach), and also with Kendall Malcolm (CD’s Emerging Talent strength & conditioning coach) for my S&C. It’s good to have their support as obviously there’s no one else here in the Bay from the Hinds team. Kendall is our team’s S&C trainer through the season, too. Jamie Watkins, our Hinds coach, was over in the Bay from Taranaki for a meeting a couple of weeks ago too, so that was great to have him at training with me and Aldin. Otherwise we talk on the phone every couple of weeks about how training is going, mindset, and we stay in touch online. It’s just the nature of CD that your coach can live six hours away.
While you’re the only Hawke’s Bay Hind, for the Central Stags it’s the opposite — there’s a whole hub of Stags training together in Napier and Hastings. Does your high performance winter work cross over with theirs, at all?
Not at this stage of the year, but last year — leading up to my season, in September, October, I did quite a lot of training with the Stags boys. That was really good because target-bowling all day long on your own isn’t the best!! It’s nice to be able to bowl at real people. And not only that, it was a chance to bowl against some really good batters that really tests you out.
There’s a familiar thread in that, for you — we’ve talked previously about how growing up with your three brothers and playing backyard cricket with them in Napier was a big influence on your early development as a pace bowler. Were they all there to see your WHITE FERNS debut in February?
Yes, my brothers and my Dad came to all my WHITE FERNS T20s in New Zealand (in Wellington, Auckland and Hamilton, against India) which was really cool. Two of my brothers live here in Napier, while my big brother plays for South Canterbury down in Timaru, so that was a big effort. My brothers are already taking all credit, they think they made me into a WHITE FERN!
Now that you are, one of the bonuses is that you’re also now involved in the WHITE FERNS winter camps programme in Lincoln. What’s been happening on that front?
There has been a lot of activity this off-season, a series of camps already and there is a fifth one coming up next week, July 13-17. I think having camps so often is good to keep you on track because you go down to Lincoln, you see everyone — and everyone is striving to be better, so it’s very motivating. Then everyone goes home to their regions and works hard on their own. When you come back together again at the next camp, it’s really cool to see everyone improving, so far.
That must be a good change of scene for you — to be able to catch up with peers in the high performance environment and train at that level.
Yeah, it’s just through geography I don’t get to see a lot of the other girls (Central Hinds) over the winter, even though we’re good friends, and stay in touch a lot online socially and also through our cricket group.
Now and then over winters some of us manage to catch up socially and that is something I always look forward to — having a weekend together with your cricket mates. I’m also hoping I’m going to be doing more training with Hannah Rowe and Jake Oram in Palmy, soon. I’m planning to go over there once every week or two to do some training in the NZCT Cricket Centre there — that’s on grass (indoors) which is nice. And, there’s a possibility that Hannah and I might also be joining in when the Stags hit pre-season there as well, which would be fantastic if it works out.
What’s the focus of your training this winter?
For me personally, my S&C is my big focus, mainly. I’m trying to get stronger because I want to get a lot faster in my bowling. Stronger and fitter, so that I can maintain my pace. And also not get injured this season!
Is there a lot of the dreaded fitness testing?
Yeah, quite a bit! I think a big focus of this winter is S&C simply because we have such a long training block over the off-season this year, grinding it out until November. But it’s a big summer coming up. It sounds like from November to March, I’ll be playing every single weekend this summer.
Do you use the winter to catch up with the rest of your life, too?
I’m actually going to start studying next week — I’m going to do a Bachelor of Health Science through Massey, online. I realised, over the last few months, that I had quite a lot of time on my hands! It’s a three-year course if you’re full-time, but I’m only doing it part-time so that it can fit in with my cricket and I can just pick and choose how many papers I want to do each semester, depending on how busy I am with cricket. Cricket is my main focus right now.
I went to the USA on holiday a couple of months ago too, and that was so nice. The temperature was in the mid-30s… and then I came home and got sick because of the temperature difference, I think. So I had a bit of a setback there when I was sick, but it’s been good getting back from that and I feel ready to go again.
It was a landmark summer for you last season, and also for the Central Hinds as a team — finishing off the summer by winning the one-day Hallyburton Johnstone Shield for the first time in 10 years. Game-changer heading into a new season?
Winning the Hallyburton Johnstone Shield Final was really big for us. That first big highlight for a group that had started together all really young! It was definitelty my highlight.
At the start of last season, we had sat and talked about how we really wanted to push ourselves — and push each other — to compete. We wanted to reach a new level as a team in 2018/19. And it showed from the very first round — how we dominated Northern Spirit, and then we took that right through to the trophy.
Now, we’re all really keen to keep that feeling going, and to lift our T20 game to match. We’ve got a lot more belief now that we can really win games, even though we are still a young team. We’ve got talent and we work so hard in our individual areas, but belief is the thing. Going forward, it’s going to be nice to have that confidence — and, everybody still wants to work hard and get better, as well.
We all post on our Hinds group page with our trainings and our S&C’s, just to keep ourselves accountable. Kerry Tomlinson and Emily Cunningham are playing in the UK but for most of the rest of us, we’ve all started our preseason training now which is really early for us and pretty exciting.
Is there lots of banter?
Yes. Betwen the Youngies and the Oldies, mainly.
Are you still a Youngy? I mean, you’re nearly 21 now…
Absolutely! I’m the reigning champion of the Youngies! For anyone who doesn’t know what we’re talking about, it’s always just the six youngest and the six oldest of the round. It’s Youngies v the Oldies in our warm-ups. Rowey’s refusing to move up to the Oldies, though.
Final thoughts?
Making the World Cup is my biggest goal for the season and I’m just really excited for the coming season. With it being just across the ditch in Australia, it’s a cool opportunity and I really want to be there. So I can’t wait for winter to be over!!
2019/20
CENTRAL HINDS
Hallyburton Johnstone Shield and Burger King Super Smash schedule — coming soon!
WHITE FERNS v South Africa
ODI 1
Jan 25, Eden Park Outer Oval, Auckland
ODI 2
Jan 27, Eden Park Outer Oval, Auckland
ODI 3
Jan 30, Seddon Park, Hamilton
T20i 1
Feb 2, Bay Oval, Mt Maunganui
T20i 2
Waitangi Day Feb 6, Seddon Park, Hamilton
T20i 3
Feb 9, Basin Reserve, Wellington
T20i 4
Feb 10, Basin Reserve, Wellington
T20i 5
Feb 13, University of Otago Oval, Dunedin
ICC WOMEN’S T20 World Cup
21 Feb — 8 March 2020, Australia
Article added: Tuesday 09 July 2019
