Launceston's Evan Gulbis has had a week to remember.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The gun cricketer played in two premierships in 24 hours and has the chance to win another trophy this Saturday.
The Carlton Cricket Club captain led his team to victory against St Kilda in the VicSuperSlam Twenty20 grand final in Melbourne on Tuesday evening.
He was then part of the Greater Northern Raiders team which defeated South Hobart Sandy Bay in the Cricket Tasmania Premier League Twenty20 decider at Bellerive Oval on Wednesday.
"It's hard to take in at the moment because it's all been a bit of a whirlwind with flying in and out to play," he said.
"It's exciting times, some people go through their whole career and never get an opportunity to play in a grand final.
"To be able to play in two within two days and obviously get the chocolates in both was a pretty cool feat."
Gulbis, a former Hobart Hurricanes player, hadn't experienced anything similar in his career.
"I don't think anyone really plays in two different competitions at the same time," he said.
"I think it'd be pretty rare. There are plenty of guys that play in T20 franchises all around the world and get opportunities to play in finals in various competitions.
"But I don't think there's too many (situations) like this. Some of the BBL players playing for their clubs at some stage might have played in both. I wouldn't have thought that it's happened too regularly."
Gulbis' constant flying back-and-forth started on Tuesday of last week when he flew to Melbourne to play in a Twenty20 semi-final against Richmond.
He flew back home to Launceston on Wednesday.
The cricketer was back on the plane to Melbourne on Friday to play a Victoria Premier Cricket one-dayer on Saturday.
He was back in the air on Sunday and landed in Launceston.
Gulbis returned to Melbourne on Tuesday for Carlton's Twenty20 success.
He was then up at 6am on Wednesday and flew to Hobart for the Raiders' midday grand final.
He took the bus to Launceston on Wednesday night and he was back in Melbourne on Thursday.
Carlton is taking on Melbourne in the Dean Jones Cup on Saturday.
"After this Saturday, I get back to normality, which is more Thursday to Sunday, half and half Melbourne/Lonnie split," he said.
Gulbis has managed to keep his head in the game despite all the travel.
Opening the batting for Melbourne he scored 45 off 31 balls and claimed 1-16 with the ball against St Kilda.
He opened for the Raiders as well and hit 29 off 12 balls.
"I'm pretty exhausted. But you're still on a high. One thing (I took from) the experience of playing BBL and in front of crowds and in big games that you get is you start to understand the energy around you," he said.
"When you finish a BBL game, it's actually really hard to go to bed, you stay up really late, because you're just frantic and your mind's racing and you've got all that energy in your system.
"So same for me over the last couple of days. It's been very hard to actually sleep because you're buzzing.
"You're excited and to have success you get even more excited. So I didn't sleep much on Tuesday night before the Wednesday game. But when you've got something to play for, you don't really need the sleep that much. A couple of coffees and away you go."
The all-rounder said the bigger challenge for him was to be physically prepared for each game.
"In T20s it's such high intensity, you're sprinting for everything," he said.
"When you're 35 years old, to be able to back up the next day and play another T20 flat-stick where you're going to bowl and bat - I suppose that's the trickiest part."
The Raiders claimed their first trophy since the franchise started four years ago.
Gulbis said it was special because it took great commitment for a Launceston team to play in a Hobart competition.
He can't believe how far the Raiders have come in such a short amount of time.
"Especially when you're a team that doesn't get a lot of the advantages," he said.
"We don't have a lot of state players. We don't have the seasoned cricketers like all the other teams do. So to fast track from infancy four years ago to a premiership team - it's pretty special and pretty unbelievable to be honest.
"I can't think of any other programs where they've been able to come in and have success that quickly.
"It's a fantastic achievement for everyone that's been involved at the Raiders to actually create an environment where the younger players can learn and then blossom into now premiership players."
Gulbis explained Carlton is gunning for its third trophy in eight days this Saturday with the Dean Jones Cup match-up.
Carlton secured the John Scholes Trophy against Fitzroy Doncaster last Saturday before it won its Twenty20 grand final on Tuesday.
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Bookmark www.examiner.com.au
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters
- Follow us on Twitter: @examineronline
- Follow us on Instagram: @examineronline
- Follow us on Google News: The Examiner