Brett D’Oliveira carries famous name into brand new era

Yet it will be the first with one as club captain. In that respect, Brett D’Oliveira has achieved something grandad Basil and dad Damian never quite managed.

“I think my grandad captained the odd game but was never club captain,” he says. “I am sure there are two people up there looking down who are really proud. It is nice to have one-up on them with the captaincy because they never did it.”

D’Oliveira admits sleep may well be in scarce supply tonight, such will be the nerves ahead of tomorrow’s County Championship opener at Leicestershire.

Quite understandably, it promises to be a special moment for a player who refers to New Road as his ‘second home’ and counts playing on the outfield with Shoaib Akhtar and being hoisted aloft by Chris Gayle among his most cherished childhood memories. His appointment as captain, replacing Joe Leach after the latter chose to step down after five years in the role, really is the culmination of a boyhood dream.

Yet it would be wrong to think it is an appointment borne from any sense of sentiment. On the contrary, it has been hard-earned, D’Oliveira having long established himself as an accomplished performer through a professional career which now spans more than a decade and has featured previous stints as stand-in skipper. Any private emotions are unlikely to last beyond the first ball at Grace Road. “When I’ve had things like this before, T20 finals day for example, you tend to find the nerves come the day before and then in the morning,” he says. “Once you get into the game, you tend to block them out.

“I am sure there will be some different emotions knocking round on the morning of the game and the night before I am pretty sure I will get little to no sleep. But ultimately I am really excited about it. I can’t wait. It is a huge honour.”

Ultimately, D’Oliveira knows there is a job to do.

His appointment marks something of a fresh beginning for a team which endured a disappointing 2021 in all three formats, finishing third in Division Three of the County Championship and failing to make it out of the group stages in the T20 Blast and Royal London Cup.

“We played some good cricket at times but when we played bad cricket, it was really bad,” says D’Oliveira.

Though the winter has not seen what could be described a major overhaul of the playing staff, there has been some notable movement with the departures of Ross Whitely, Rikki Wessels and long-time servant Daryl Mitchell, together with the signings of Ed Pollock from Warwickshire and Pakistan batsman Azhar Ali.

A veteran of 94 Tests, who passed 7,000 runs at the top level during the recent series against Australia, the latter is available for the entire County Championship season and will add experience and pedigree to a top order which, in Jake Libby, already boasts one of the best batsmen on the county circuit.

Ali was signed in February after Matthew Wade, the club’s original overseas player, was picked up by the IPL and his capture, together with that of Dwayne Bravo and Colin Munro for the T20 Blast, feels like a statement of intent from a club eager to get back on track.

“It is absolute intent and it shows what we are trying to do,” says D’Oliveira. “With Azhar Ali, from the perspective of being four-day captain, I am so grateful for that because of his experience, he is a quality performer and he has been over here and done it before with Somerset.

“You only have to look at the recent series he has played against Australia to see how well he has done there.

“Being a new captain, having his experience on the field, just to be able to pick his brains, about whatever it might be, I am really excited about that and grateful the guys at the top have made that signing.”

With the County Championship having reverted back to two divisions for what promises to be the first ‘normal’ season since 2019, promotion from the eight-team second tier is the obvious aim. In addition to experience in the likes of Ali, Libby, Ben Cox – D’Oliveira’s task is to nurture the club’s latest crop of talented youngsters, including young batsman Jack Haynes and bowler Dillon Pennington.

Leach remains a key member of the team and a good sounding board. The departed Mitchell, meanwhile, remains only a phone call away for the new skipper, as does Vikram Solanki, a player who D’Oliveira grew up idolising and now calls a friend.

“People ask me what kind of captain I am going to be and the honest answer is I’m unsure, because I haven’t done it too much,” he says.

“I hope I don’t change too much. I am going to be quite relaxed but I will challenge the boys at certain times if I think they need it because I think that is important.

“But I want to be the guy who gives the boys confidence and I want them to be inspired playing under me. I know that is hard to do. I will try and do it through my own traits and performances.

“Over the last decade we have been great at producing young guys and allowing them to kick on. We have players who are young in terms of age but have played a lot of games. You just hope you get on that momentum roll. We all know in sport if you get a couple of wins and things go in your favour it can be hard to stop. We just want to stay consistent and if we do that, I’m sure our quality will shine through.”