It promised to be the most challenging, and best, experience of his career, and for Ben Livingstone the recent under-15 national championships has lit the fire in his belly.
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The Tamworth teenager played for NSW Magenta at the championships in Ballarat and said the experience has motivated him to keep working hard and hopefully earn an opportunity to play at the nationals again.
"It was just such a good experience," he said.
"I (just) want to improve now."
One area he will be looking to work on is how he plays spin.
"I got out to spin a fair bit, it's definitely an improvement area," Livingstone said.
"I felt like I faced the fast bowlers pretty well."
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But the spinners did trouble him.
It was Livingstone's first time playing at the nationals, and while, by his own admission, he didn't perform as well as he would have liked, he still took a lot away from the week.
"We got to play on good grounds and our coaches were really good," he said.
"They had so much knowledge."
The head coach for his side - Alex Kemp - was an opening batsmen for the Queensland Bulls and part of the 2012 Sheffield Shield-winning side.
They started on fire winning their first two games, but then lost their next four.
Livingstone's best innings of the carnival came in their third game against Victoria Metro. Coming in at four he was his side's equal second-top scorer with 35.
He hadn't had a lot of time in the middle leading into the championships. He hadn't really played any cricket since the Hunter Valley Macquarie Generation under-15s carnival in late January, where he did incidentally score an unbeaten century.
Time in the nets was also pretty scarce.
"I didn't play or have a net session for three weeks before the carnival," he said.
"Because of the rain all the nets were wet."
It wasn't the ideal preparation. The break did refresh him a bit, but with a little bit more training he felt he probably could have "gone a little bit better".
He will now turn his attention towards the local grade finals, with his City United second grade side finishing second.
Following that he will suit up for Central North in a three-day carnival at Sawtell next month.
The carnival has been convened after the Bradman Cup was cancelled due to the bushfires earlier this year and will also feature North Coast and Central Coast.
