Pre-season tours now so professional says Tim Bresnan

Bresnan is on tour with Yorkshire in South Africa at the world-renowned NWU PUK Sports Village in Potchefstroom, which was used by the Spain football team before the 2010 World Cup.

Yorkshire’s first match on the tour is a two-day game against Notts, starting today, followed by one-day fixtures against Notts and Leeds-Bradford UCCE plus a two-day inter-squad contest.

Bresnan insists that the players are in splendid shape. “This is my 17th pre-season, and there’s much more professionalism now on pre-season tours,” he said. “The first one I went on was more like a stag do with some cricket in between.

“The facilities here lend themselves to high performance, which is why we’ve come. You look around and there are world-class athletes using the track, and you’ve got world-class rugby teams here preparing and training at altitude to try and up their fitness levels.

“There’s a really good feeling among the boys, and everybody is really fit. It’s probably the fittest I’ve ever seen us and the lads are flying.”