“I’ve been a Thunder supporter since day one,” Bracken said.

He’s a Western Sydney boy through and through growing up in the Blue Mountains.

“For the sport and particularly the area, it’s fantastic,” he said.

Bracken is in the region to lend his expertise at the Shaun Brown’s Cricket Coaching camps running in Tamworth and Armidale.

He’ll head up to Armidale today, swapping with fellow former quick Len Pascoe.

“The big thing is getting stuff here. That’s the big thing,” Bracken said.

“Making it accessible to the kids.” 

He has been coming to Tamworth as long as the camps have been, and was keeping his message pretty simple.

It was about finding “one thing to improve in their batting, one thing to improve in their bowling and their fielding.” 

The Thunder’s thrilling win completed a tournament that has captivated the nation, with spectators pouring through the gates.

Bracken admitted he would have loved to have played in it.

“It’s changed cricket,” he said. “You look at cricket and the way it is played.

“Test cricket 10 years ago, averaging two-and-a-half runs an over was good. Now they’re averaging four. 

“The fielding skills are going through the roof. So are the batting skills and the bowling.”

The retirement of Mitchell Johnson, injuries to Mitchell Starc and Nathan Coulter-Nile, among others, and the resting of  Bendeemer’s Josh Hazlewood for the final four games of the one-day series against India saw the Australian pace battery take on a bit of a different look with the likes of Scott Boland and Joel Paris making their international debuts.

For Bracken, one of the biggest positives was seeing James Pattinson  fit and firing.

John Hastings was also good in the one-day series.

He was probably the only one, Bracken felt, who was smart about how they went about it.

“A lot of the others were very one-dimensional,” he said.

He said that one of the things the series highlighted was that the bowlers have to reinvent, come up with different processes.

“The big thing is adapting to the conditions and changing,” he said.

“That’s what we need to learn and learn it quicker.” 

And become more game- aware.

Around 70 youngsters are attending the two-day camp.

“It’s good to see so many kids here and keen about their cricket,” Tamworth camp coordinator Josh Moxey said.

When The Leader dropped in yesterday they were on their lunch break, not that you would have known.

They were all out playing, either games amongst themselves or in the nets.

“For the country kids it’s a bit of an opportunity to get someone like a Nathan Bracken or Len Pascoe, who played at the highest level, to come and teach them something,” Moxey said. 

“They might even get the chance to touch Nathan’s baggy green.”