Durham opener Ben McKinney admits he wanted to be “greedy” as his career best first-class score in Durham’s innings and 225-run victory over Gloucestershire at Bristol saw him named the Rothesay County Championship Player of the Round.
McKinney hit a magnificent 244 from 272 balls in Durham’s first-innings score of 605-5 declared, setting the match up for the bowlers to take the 20 wickets needed for victory.
“We always knew there was a little bit in the wicket,” McKinney told ecb.co.uk.
“The scorecard shows that. You are allowed to bat well sometimes. When you do get into that position when you get thrown in on day one and then you eventually see that you could bat once, that is where you start to get greedy.
“It was a nice wicket so scoreboard pressure for us was important. There was plenty of time in the game because we scored fast, which gave us that licence to go all out for the win.”
On his desire to go big this year he said: “I did a couple of interviews before the season saying that I wanted to be more selfish when I am at the crease and getting those bigger scores. I make plenty of thirties and forties and probably not enough fifties and hundreds. I want to be greedy and to do that early in the season is a great feeling.”
McKinney hit 36 fours and six sixes in his mammoth knock, sharing an opening stand of 305 with skipper Alex Lees, who made 129. On having such an experienced partner at the other end, McKinney said: “He’s really good at realising moments in games.
“We were on top early on with that short side and we got off to a flier, scoring at five-runs-an-over. We were talking about how we can stamp our authority on the game. I think his ruthlessness is something that I really enjoy because it keeps me in that same mindset when we’re out there. That is definitely something I can bring into my own game.
“Then having Bedders [David Beddingham] come in and straight away doing what he does and attacking the game. I was in a position to do that as well so it was really good fun in the end.”
Ruthlessness and reading match situations are aspects of his game that McKinney, who toured with the England Lions in the winter, has been working on as he matures as a batter: “I am a pretty aggressive player, but I have to understand that doesn’t mean I can only live by that.
“It is about understanding that some days I might have to score a bit slower because it is a bowler-friendly wicket or the bowlers are bowling well. It’s about not kidding cricket – sometimes you have to bite the bullet and play in a slightly different manner to score runs on that specific day. It’s probably just about growing up really and realising that you can’t play the same way every day and on every wicket.”
Finally, on Durham being top of the Division Two Table and their start to the season, he added: “We were gutted with the Kent game, because we felt we were in a good position in the game until Storm Dave took the sightscreen out!
“We feel like we could have been two-from-two but that’s okay. If you look at our squad we should feel like it’s too good to be in this division. It is about not getting complacent with that which Cambo [head coach Ryan Campbell] has spoken about and doing the business.”
McKinney rightfully earned a maximum of three votes for his outstanding performance this round, with other players notably earning the maximum votes including Craig Overton for his match-turning 141 against Essex on a tricky deck at Chelmsford and Kyle Abbott for his 10-wicket haul against Yorkshire at Headingley.
Elsewhere, in the second round of games, Luke Procter received three votes for his magnificent unbeaten 261 against Kent. The other players to receive a maximum of three votes in this round were Sussex’s Jack Leaning, Nottinghamshire’s Joe Clarke, Dan Lategan from Worcestershire, Marcus Harris from Lancashire, and Surrey’s Jamie Smith.
Smith sits atop the leaderboard alongside Somerset’s James Rew with five votes apiece after the opening two rounds.
The 3-2-1 voting system will be employed across all Rothesay County Championship matches this summer – judged by the ECB Reporters’ Network supported by Rothesay – with a Player of the Round selected from the players who received three votes. Last week’s Player of the Round was Essex’s Matt Critchley.
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