Up and coming Bathurst cricket prodigy Ryan Peacock has been selected to play for the NSW Country Thunder team to compete in next month’s Under-19s NSW State Challenge.
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Peacock, who is a talented spin-bowler and middle-order batsman, said it was a massive honour to be selected in the country team.
“It’s a pretty big [honour], but it would be even bigger if I was to go on and make the singular country side,” Peacock said.
“It’s a pretty big achievement for my first year in Under 19s.”
Peacock is the only player selected from the Western region across the two regional representative teams, proving how much immense talent is spread across the country and he said the honour is his biggest yet.
“[In terms of achievement] it would be a toss up between this [NSW Country] and NSW All Schools,” Peacock said.
“This is probably a little bit higher [NSW Country], seeing it is a Cricket NSW pathway.”
Sydney has one of the strongest talent pools in Australia, with a strong competitive grade system, but Peacock is positive of getting a good result against the metropolitan sides.
“The last two state challenges I played for the under-17s and I only lost one match and it was against one of the city sides, but every year we’ve stuck it to them pretty well,” Peacock said.
“They get the rub of the green in terms of facilities, but the country guys are getting a lot more exposure to good cricket.”
Peacock is the only one in the team that bowls a left-arm off spin, but competition will be immense, with another four spinners in the group.
The team has a strong bond, with the squad of 20 working together throughout the off-season, by training and playing together.
While the state challenge may be a massive tournament, Peacock will have his focus on the upcoming All Schools Cricket competition next week, where his NSW All Schools team will play Queensland All Schools in a one-day match and a three-day match in Sydney.
Recent good form for the NSW Combined High School 2nd XI team in the NSW All Schools competition in early 2016, saw the Bathurst local selected in the representative team.
“I was lucky enough to perform well in the first two days,” Peacock said.
On the first day he scored 4-10 off 10 and scored 48 not out, and followed it up with 3-20 off 10 and 45 not out the following day.
While being selected for one of the two NSW Country teams, Peacock's next big aim is to be selected for the overall NSW Country team and to make it in the Sydney Grade Cricket competition, previously trialling at St George Cricket Club.
NSW Country Thunder will compete against the Metropolitan representative sides at Besons Lane in Richmond on October 4-6.
