Tom Kohler-Cadmore admits he has learnt the need for patience and the importance of building an innings after his debut season of first team cricket with Worcestershire.
Kohler-Cadmore stepped up from schools cricket with Malvern College into the senior set-up at New Road and showed plenty of promise including 99 against Derbyshire – one of four half centuries he scored in the LV = County Championship.
There is no doubting the exciting potential of the 20-year-old and a thrilling half century in front of 12,000 people in a NatWest T20 Blast match with Birmingham Bears at Edgbaston showed his capability of handling a big occasion.
But Kohler-Cadmore concedes he was guilty of trying to score runs from ball one rather than playing each delivery on its merit in the four-day game.
He said: "I didn't give myself the chance to score runs whereas when you watch the people who scored runs, it's all to do with batting a long time and then later on they picked up their tempo.
"I was trying to play at a higher tempo from ball one. That's the main thing I've learnt from this year.
"It doesn't matter how long you bat for, how long you are on nought for. If you are not out, you will score 100s whereas when you are out, you can't even score a run.
"I felt with having a clear head it doesn't mean you see the ball and you have to hit it. It means there is no bias one way or the other and you are not thinking 'I've got to get after it'.
"You just see the ball and if it's a good ball you just naturally defend it or leave it and if it's a bad ball, you naturally hit it for four and that's all batting is really."
Kohler-Cadmore earned his opportunity after impressing on the pre-season tour of Abu Dhabi.
He said: "I just felt I'd been given a chance. I didn't think 'it's from schools cricket to first team county cricket'.
"I just expected myself to do well. Obviously at the start things didn't go so well.
"Then when I got back in the side, it got a bit better but I'd still expect myself to do better than I did."
