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Lead partners of England cricket joined World Cup squad at The Grove.
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The Professional Cricketers’ Association hosted the annual Team England Golf Day on Friday, hours after starting their World Cup campaign with an impressive victory over South Africa.
Sponsored by NatWest, England players joined senior partners of the ECB and PCA in playing a round of golf at The Grove, one of the UK’s most prestigious courses.
With the 2019 playing schedule more congested than ever, white-ball captain Eoin Morgan pin-pointed Friday 31 May as the perfect opportunity to take the squad away from a cricket environment to spend time with England cricket’s commercial partners, creating an unrivalled opportunity to spend time with the World Cup squad.
It was not just England’s 50-over squad who played at the Hertfordshire course, Stuart Broad joined the group and ended up taking home the prize for the individual performance of the day. The 437 Test wicket-taking seamer scored 40 points playing in the Team England Player Partnership team alongside Ashley Giles, Richard Bevan and Tony Singh.
Fresh from his match-winning all-round performance at the Oval, Ben Stokes’ catch was the talk of the course and he showed his versatility once again as he led his four-ball to the team prize. Playing in an ECB team joined by Sanjay Patel, Michael Lumb and Alistair Milner, they won the 18-team golf day.
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Team England Golf Day
The PCA caught up with England players at The Grove during the annual link-up with senior commercial partners.
The 18 holes were sandwiched between a breakfast upon arrival and a barbeque lunch to finish before the England squad travelled up to Nottingham for Monday’s group game against Pakistan. The England skipper was playing with one of the two NatWest teams and after contributing a half-century on his 200th England ODI appearance the day before, he gave his thoughts ahead of teeing off on the fourth hole.
“The squad are in good spirits, Thursday couldn’t have gone any better for us,” said Morgan.
“It’s always nice with the anticipation of the tournament which felt like we were waiting forever to get going. To start the way we did was a really positive, confident start and I thought Ben Stokes had a magnificent day out but all-round contributions from the whole team made it all the more satisfying going into a big tournament.
“The PCA Team England Golf Day is a great occasion, the majority of our guys love playing golf so to get away from cricket and to tear up the golf day is brilliant.
“It is a day we love and it gives us a chance to engage with our very loyal partners. It’s a very relaxed and chilled out day and all the players really enjoy it.
“I would like to thank NatWest who have been one of our most loyal supporters over the past 40 years. Their continued support is incredibly important for the growth of the game, particularly with grassroots cricket, NatWest are a very important partner.”
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