Devon Cricket Board - Overton twins off to South Africa with England EPP

Overton twins off to South Africa with England EPP

By RICHARD WALSH
SOMERSET duo Craig and Jamie Overton won't be hanging around long at Taunton after reporting back for winter training this week.
For the twins are off on their travels on Wednesday with the ECB Performance Programme squad to Potchefstroom in South Africa.
And it could be Christmas week before the twins are back in this county, if either or both of them are selected by England Lions for a twenty20 tournament in Dubai.
'We are both off to South Africa to work on our bowling for 12 days in Potch, then we go onto Dubai for eight days,' said Jamie, who is on the left in the photo with twin Craig.
With Somerset team-mate Lewis Gregory withdrawing from the Lions' party, and David Willey now playing in the Big Bash, it looks as though two of the fast bowlers from the EPP group will join the Lions in Dubai.
If the Lions go for only one fast bowling replacement, the twins could be competing for the same spot.
'If there is only one place then I expect Jamie will be the one called up as he has played more T20 than me,' said Craig, who is the older of the twins by three minutes.
'If we are not selected for the Lions then we will be back here on December 2, but if we are then we wont be back until just before Christmas.
'Then we will have to wait and see whether we are involved with the Lions early in the New Year to Dubai again.'
England have kept tabs on both Overtons since they were teenagers, starting out in the under-17 side and progressing through the age-groups to England Lions squads.
They won't be 22 until next April, yet seem to have been part of the Somerset scene for a long time.
Both first appeared in 2011 in 2nd XI cricket as teenage hopefuls and have been on the permanent staff for four seasons.
Prior to joining Somerset the twins were part of the Devon youth system. Both played for North Devon CC and still turn out in the odd Premier Division game when their Somerset commitments permit.
Jamie played eight Championship matches for Somerset last season, in which he scored 146 runs at 20.86 and took 16 wickets at 38.25. There were seven wickets in the 11 twenty20 matches he played in.
'I didn't play as much as I would have liked to at the start, but come the end I was playing in every game that came so I was very happy to be involved,' said Jamie.
'For the first time this year I also played T20 cricket which was a bit weird going into it as I hadn't played much of that format in my career.
'It was good to get a few games and I felt that I did pretty well.'
Craig scored 320 runs, including three half-centuries, at an average of 29.09 and took 43 wickets at 21.70 with a best of six for 74. He claimed 12 List A wickets at 20.83 too.
Looking back on the season, Overton said: 'Things went pretty well for me with bat and ball.
'I didn't quite manage to get that hundred, but I know that it is going to come sooner or later.
'With the ball I felt that I went a bit further than I did last year and managed to get the new ball and get the wickets which is what I always wanted to do.
'This year we didn't perform as well as we could as a team but we went in the right direction at the end of the season which is showing good signs of development going into next year.'
A high spot for the twins - and the Somerset followers who saw it - was their last wicket partnership of 76 off 34 balls against Yorkshire, which included an 18-ball half-century for Jamie.
'We decided to have a bit of fun and it didn't matter too much if we got out,' said Jamie.
'We just played our natural game, which for me is trying to be positive and Craig was the same.
'I think we make each other play better because when we are out in the middle together we always score runs, so hopefully we will get more chances in the future.'
Who is going to be first to get a century?
'I assume its going to be me,' said Craig, 'but you never know because Jamie can get 100 off 30 balls in any game so we will have to wait and see.'

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