Gloucestershire fast bowler Luke Charlesworth says “he cant deal with the forceful Monopoly or cards” during prolonged rain delays and long days in the dressing room.
For six months of the year fields are turned from football pitches into outfields as the whites are thrown on and a red leather ball is thrown around.
County players in Britain spend almost the entire spring and summer in the changing room and on the field of play.
The other six are spent in the gym as professional cricketers are forced into the dreaded indoor nets. However when the season first finishes, a well earned rest is in order.
”October is given off for all county cricketers, the month of October is like don’t want to see you go away, go on holiday. Thats a nice period actually, you can really decompress and go see friends and family you don’t get to see in the summer.”
Cricket has one of the longest off season’s in the sporting calendar as many players chose to get married in the Autumn/Winter months.
Like most sports, Cricket is no different in saying that when its in season the schedule is hectic as ever. The chance to see those outside the team are slim.
“You don’t have that freedom to see other people. You see your teammates for six months and luckily for us we are quite close in the Gloucestershire changing room and I have some real best mates in there.”
As October moves to November, players are back in the gym and training to keep up with demands of the professional cricket.
🏋️♂️ Back to the grind! The squad’s first gym session of pre-season! Eyes already on 2026. 💪#BecomeGlorious pic.twitter.com/mcj0gY6sZx
— Gloucestershire Cricket (@Gloscricket) November 11, 2025
”I tend to keep myself ticking over with gym and our S&C program but that is the only structure I have to my day. The rest of it is taken up by watching the rugby highlights or watching the cricket highlights and trying not to go insane.”
When it is finally time to head out onto the field, a portion of it is interrupted by the British weather. Players have various methods of dealing with long rain delays but Luke says, unlike his team mates, he struggles with the sitting around.
“I cant deal with forceful Monopoly Deal or cards, I can’t do it. Some guys really don’t mind, there’s definitely no changing room cricket. I need to get better at that, I would love to be able to read in rain delays.
That would be a really productive thing to do with that time as unfortunately you spend a lot of time watching it rain.”
When not playing franchise cricket abroad, players try make the off season pass as quickly as possible. Unfortunately the waiting has only just began as the 2026 season starts in March.
