Returning to hometown Perth in his first Queensland side has made Luke Pomersbach feel “halfway back” to cricket redemption.
But the once troubled ex-WA batsman admits he still has a long way to go before silencing his worst critic – himself.
Pomersbach on Wednesday learned he would don the Queensland colours for the first time since biting the bullet and moving to Brisbane – in the four-day Futures League 2nd XI clash with WA in Perth from Monday.
“It feels like I am halfway back,” he told AAP.
“It’s the first step back towards where I want to be.
“I have got the passion back. I think every cricketer loses it every now an again, you go off the boil a bit.
“But I have it back. It feels like I am playing under 17s again I have that much drive.”
Pomersbach relocated to Brisbane from Perth last season to play club cricket after being dumped by the Warriors for alcohol-related discipline breaches.
But his future was further muddied when arrested this year for assault in India while playing in the IPL, however, he was cleared after charges were withdrawn.
Critics on fan forums reacted quickly to Queensland signing Pomersbach on a one-season deal in July, drawing comparisons with the doomed Brendan Fevola-Brisbane Lions union.
But Pomersbach was beaming on Wednesday when he got the 2nd XI nod just one week after returning from off-season hand surgery for Brisbane club Toombul.
He could see a wonderful symmetry with returning to WA for his first game in a Queensland side and hoped family and friends would be proud when he reunited with them in Perth.
However, the man who was famously plucked from the WACA carpark to make his international Twenty20 debut in 2007 said his goal was to prove something to himself.
“That’s my biggest drive,” he said.
“I could have been on a better pathway by now but I made a few bad decisions along the way.
“It’s been a big learning curve for me but finally I am back and I have an opportunity to show the world what I have got.
“I am keen to get back out there on the big stage.”
