The former Gloucestershire paceman has been working hard with Bowling Coach Pop Welch throughout the winter.
Liam Norwell has been fired up for his first season at Warwickshire ever since signing a three-year contract with the club late last year.
But if anything could make the former Gloucestershire paceman even more fired up – it was hearing Tim Munton talk about what it means to be a Bear.
That is the sort of belief and passion for the Bears that we want in this generation of players and it was clear to me from the start that it’s here.
Liam Norwell
Norwell has been hard at work at Edgbaston all through the winter in the gym and with bowling coach Pop Welch. He is, to say the least, champing at the bit after missing almost the whole of last season due to a hamstring injury.
The 27-year-old settled immediately into the dressing-room and the club – and when he saw that Bears legend Tim Munton, one of the stars of the ’94 treble side, was giving a tour and talk, was quick to sign up.
Norwell found the event “really inspiring.”
“I loved it,” he said. “I think what I took from it most was Tim’s passion for being a Bear. We all know the amazing things that side achieved in the mid-90s and he said that so much of it came from the passion for the club that the players had. It drove them on.
“That passion is something that I felt straight away. You can’t not feel it when you talk to people and see how much they care and how big the club is and how much it means. It makes you realise that you are part of something much bigger than just a team and how lucky you are to be part of it.
“Listening to Tim was really inspiring. That is the sort of belief and passion for the Bears that we want in this generation of players and it was clear to me from the start that it’s here.”
Norwell can’t wait to get started competitively for Warwickshire after a winter spent completing his path back to fitness after the hamstring problems that ruled him out of almost all last season.
“The winter has gone well and ” he said. “The hammy is fine and I am backing myself to get quickly back in the groove after a frustrating year. As you get older you get to know more about your body and what you need to do to stay on the park. I take that very seriously and am very regimented about what I do on the match-days and, as it turns out, that is very close to how Pop wants us to prepare.
“I have done a lot of work with Pop on a few technical things over the last few months which has been really valuable. Now I just can’t wait to get out to Abu Dhabi and bowling outdoors. It will be the first time I have been overseas for pre-season, at Gloucestershire we were always in the tent, so it will be brilliant to get that couple of weeks ahead in terms of practice.
“I want to play a lot of first-team cricket next season but the competition in the bowling department will be very fierce. All the seamers are bowling really well in the nets at the moment. There is lot of cricket in the season across the three formats and I think we will all get opportunities in all of them.”
