TWO THOUSAND and twenty-five was an important year for left arm seamer JT Langridge who joined the Somerset Pathway at Under 10 level and came onto the Academy in 2022.

He appeared for Somerset in the 2023 National County fixtures against Devon and Cornwall before making his List A debut in August of that year against Sussex in the Metro Bank One Day Cup.

Despite his lack of game time last year because of injury , JT was offered a first professional contract in October, 2024.

How did it feel to sign a contract after such a frustrating season? “I was so grateful to get one. When I bowled my first ball in the nets over the winter, I realised just how much I’d missed it. When you’re away from the game for a while, you can forget how much you love it. Getting back into it was amazing.

“It’s been great. When you’re working your way through the Academy, the goal is to be a professional cricketer, and you have expectations of what it will be like. In many ways, it’s been different to what I was expecting, but it’s been truly brilliant and I’m so grateful to have been given this opportunity.

“It was definitely everything that I hoped it would be, and I want to spend the next 15 years being a professional cricketer! You get the satisfaction of enjoying everything that you’ve worked so hard for, and you want to strive to get to the next level.”

“It’s such a great group. The camaraderie is incredible. We’re a team on the field and we’re all friends off it. It’s great to be able to say that I go to work, if you can call it that, every day with a bunch of blokes who I like spending time with.”