AS far as lures go, it is a pretty powerful one.
The prospect of more games in the green and gold was a main motivating factor behind former South Tamworth captain Nick Leyden ending his two-season retirement from Tamworth cricket – back at the club this season after savouring, from the sidelines, their long-awaited grand final triumph in 2017-18.
The solicitor had been retired for a year before representing Australia at the sixth Lawyers Cricket World Cup in Sri Lanka in August last year.
The next World Cup will be held in Hamilton, New Zealand, in December next year.
Leyden put on the whites again as preparation for that event – where the Aussies will be defending champions after beating Sri Lanka by six runs in the 2017 final in Colombo.
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Prior to that, he will play for Australian against the New Zealand lawyers team in Hamilton in January.
“It was a fairly good standard [at the World Cup], which I probably was a little surprised by,” he said, adding: “So I just wanted to keep my eye in a bit.”
Another motivating factor for the 33-year-old returning to South Tamworth was the chance to again play with “close mates” who were “probably getting towards the end of their playing days”.
“So I thought it would be good to come back and have another season, being kid-free and that sort of thing,” he said.
He had “no regrets” about not playing in the grand final win over Old Boys, after being part of South Tamworth’s long sequence of grand final losses: “I was just happy to see them break the hoodoo that Old Boys had over us for a few years … I really enjoyed that back end of last season, watching a lot of that cricket, though.”
South Tamworth play a one-dayer against West Tamworth at No.1 Oval on Saturday. It will be only the second match this season after the past two rounds were washed out, but Leyden will miss the clash due to a personal commitment.
