McAndrew: “I can’t wait to be amongst it”

Nathan McAndrew "can't wait" to arrive at Warwickshire and get stuck into a crack at county cricket which he admits came "completely out of the blue."

Aussie all-rounder McAndrew is due to arrive in Birmingham in the next few days ahead of his stint as Bears overseas player. Hopefully he will be available for selection against Essex against Edgbaston next week.

It will be the 28-year-old’s first taste of county cricket and only his second foray into English cricket – the other was a summer with Hornchurch in the Essex League in 2012.

McAndrew’s back-story is unusual. He came to the fore as a seam bowler for South Australia in Australian domestic red-ball cricket only this winter, having only focused on bowling relatively recently in his career. In his first ever red-ball campaign in first class cricket, he is second top wicket-taker in the Sheffield Shield,

“I was always an opening batsman who bowled a little bit.” said McAndrew. “But after I came to England in 2012, I went back for the next Australian summer and played my first year in grade cricket in Sydney and they turned me into a bowler.

“When I was 19 I shot up a little bit and my bowling has slowly grown from there. It’s been a slow, steady process, continuing to get better and learning about bowling, because I didn’t grow up doing it, but it’s been a good transition and this season went very well for me.

“Three years ago I started to work with Andre Adams at New South Wales and that made a huge difference. I wasn’t on a contract with New South Wales but I was able to go in and net bowl and train with the group and he made a couple of little tweaks to my action. They were not major changes but really important ones and that transformed my career. It’s been an upward trajectory from there.

Nathan McAndrew

“I hadn’t played four-day cricket in Australia until this year so my first season in it has gone really well. I couldn’t break into the New South Wales team, which is really strong, so I moved down to South Australia and had a really good season and now I have this fantastic opportunity with Warwickshire. It’s something that I never really expected and I’m really excited.”

McAndrew’s all-round skills will offer skipper Will Rhodes a valuable option in the months ahead – and the new signing is determined to add all he can to the champions’ squad.

“Warwickshire having just won the league makes it a great time for me to be jumping on board,” he said. “I can’t wait to be amongst it and hopefully contribute to as many wins as possible. I’m really looking forward to meeting the guys. Steve Stubbings, our batting coach, played county cricket and told me that Warwickshire is such a great, historic club with a really good, strong culture.

“Hopefully there will be a little bit more in the pitches than what I am used to bowling on over here. I’m not a huge swinger of the ball but a bit of seam movement is more my style and if there is any moisture in the wicket and a little bit in it for the bowlers, hopefully I can extract that.

“I’ll also add as much as I can with the bat, but looking at the Surrey game last week from afar it seems the team is already in a very good place. There were some good scores down the order and that’s always really impressive. In all good teams, the tail wags. It’s that attitude that everybody wants to contribute in every way they can.”