JACK BROOKS COLUMN

Views from the first-class cricketer, who's been letting his hair down

So now I’m just over two weeks into the off season and my time off from anything cricket-related and I’ve just about had my fill of punishing my liver.

It’s been fun and a necessity to let my overgrown hair down and party hard, but I can’t survive another four weeks of it. I’m getting old!

Alex Wakely, a very good friend from my time at Northants, got married, which provided a weekend, which was good for many reasons.

In particular, it was great to catch up with the majority of the Northants Steelbacks boys and suffice to say there was plenty of banter flying around with regards to next season when Yorkshire and Northants will play each other six times.

It will be pretty strange for me to take the field against those guys in a competitive game, but I’m thoroughly looking forward to it.

I’ll either receive the silent treatment or a complete barrage of ‘sledging’.

After a couple of days recovering from the wedding, I was getting on a plane to Ireland with 23 other guys, including most of the Yorkshire squad, for teammate Richard Pyrah’s stag do in Kilkenny.

Organised by the best man, Tim Bresnan, it was always going to be a challenging couple of days.

Not surprisingly with Brez, there were a few hiccups in logistics and organisation.

But, needless to say, it was a great trip, and I don’t think there was a point when we were all in a pub or bar, day or night, when there wasn’t a pint of Guinness being poured by the bar staff.

Not entirely sure how I survived the trip on four hours sleep, but I got back in one piece.

The next two days’ recovery were a struggle, and after a brutal sweat session in the gym the following day I spent the rest of the weekend in bed.

That trip is probably the last time I’ll see the Yorkie lads representing England down under this winter in Oz.

They are all massively excited for the trip, but under no illusions how difficult it will be to win an Ashes series in Australia.

It's only just over a month until the first Test starts and all the Ashes hype begins over again.

Hopefully, I will be over there playing club cricket somewhere and getting some sunshine.

All being well, I’ll have something organised within the next month.

Anything’s better than another baltic winter in Leeds.