Interview with Italy International Nikolai Smith

 

I had the pleasure of being able to chat with Italian international cricketer Nikolai Smith before the start of Italy's World Cup Europe Qualifiers in Desert Springs, Spain where Italy will face Germany, Jersey, and also Denmark in hopes of making it to the next round of qualifiers.

Nikolai has been training hard since the end of the NCU season with Instonians. Nikolai has also spent a lot of time over the summer working on his technique and also altering his batting style. 

'I personally feel that I have been able to adapt my game well to different situations over the last few years. I have made a few changes to my technique and have gone about the shorter format cricket with a different mindset'. 

Nikolai also chatted to me about how much of a boost having Jade Dernbach in the Italy squad has been for the whole camp. 

'Having someone of Jade Dernbach's class come into the team will really boost our chances of topping the qualifiers. Jade and Gareth have really helped me the last couple of days since arriving as I've been able to ask them questions and get feedback from players with vast experience across both the English county game and also International experience'. 

Nikolai is about to make his T20 International debut for Italy in the upcoming series. Nikolai spoke of his desire to play cricket at the highest level. 

'My cricket goal has always been to test myself against the best and to play at as high of a level I can. I feel that when I perform at the best of my ability, I can score runs very freely and can help the team to further success. I feel that the end to the season I had at Instonians has given me a good platform to start this tournament well'.

Nikolai also discussed the playing conditions at Desert Springs and gave his assessment on them.

‘As seen from when the Under 19 World Cup qualifiers were here, it is difficult to bat first at this ground and tricky enough to score runs. Setting a target here can range anywhere from 100 up to 150. We back our bowlers to defend whatever total we set at this ground’.

I would like to offer my best wishes to Nikolai and thank him for taking his time out of his busy schedule to help me out with the blog.