Bracewell fine-tunes batting skills to earn New Zealand call-up

heving been pushed down the pecking order, New Zealand's bowling allrounder, Doug Bracewell, has said that he's working on his batting to offer an attractive package ahead of future selections. Unlike many of his colleagues who spent the off-season featuring in various overseas leagues, Bracewell took the opportunity to go back to the nets at Central Districts and worked extensively on his batting.


The right-arm medium pacer is currently part of New Zealand's pre-tour camp in Pretoria, South Africa, after which the team is scheduled to visit Zimbabwe for a series consisting of two Tests. The Zimbabwe series will then be followed by a two-Test series against South Africa, beginning on August 19th.
"It has been good to get out on grass and under the sun and get some overs under the belt," Bracewell said on Sunday (July 17), speaking about the ongoing training camp.
Having worked hard on his batting during the off-season, Bracewell hopes that his efforts will bear fruit during the upcoming Tests. "I have been working on the batting quite a lot and trying to improve on that and turn out some more runs," he said.
Bracewell returns to the venue where he made his Test debut five years ago, against Zimbabwe, at the Queens Sports Club, still struggling to cement a permanent place in New Zealand's Test line-up. He has shown potential with the bat at times, but lack of consistency has been his major undoing. A Test batting average of 13.33 and a One Day International (ODI) batting average of 9.83 doesn't provide the true picture of Bracewell's batting abilities.
"I have always wanted to be [an all-rounder] ever since I started playing first class," he said. "I guess over the last couple of years I have not produced the numbers I would have liked. But in saying that, I have put in a lot of hard work over the last year or two. I am starting to slowly see some improvements. Hopefully, I keep working hard at it and I'll start scoring some runs," Bracewell concluded.