Fraser Judd’s impressive rise from Gladstone to Toowoomba to Queensland Schoolboys’ team

From Central Queensland to the Darling Downs, TGS student Fraser Judd has been a force to be reckoned with at the batting crease for a number of years. After making the Queensland Schoolboys team and starring for the Darling Dingoes, see what his next goal is here.

Young cricketer Fraser Judd

Following in the footsteps of legendary Queensland and Toowoomba Grammar School cricketer Martin Love, Toowoomba Grammar School’s Fraser Judd is looking to make his mark in the cricketing world in the Garden City.
After moving more than 500km from his home to board at TGS, Judd’s career has gone from strength to strength since moving in 2023.

Judd shared his pride in being able to perform at a high level in the pressure cooker that is cricket in South Queensland – where some of Queensland and Australia’s best cricketers face off.

“Coming down south, it is all good doing well up north but when the pressure is a lot higher and stakes are a lot higher down south, it is good to come down and prove to myself that I’m good enough to play all right wherever I am rather than just in the one place,” he said.

“I would say that’s a pretty good achievement.”

While he may be a newcomer to Darling Downs cricket, the left-handed top order batter has been an eye-catching talent for several years.

From playing against seniors and making the Queensland Schoolboys’ team as a 12 year old, to taking out the George Mitchell Medal for player of the carnival while representing Central Queensland at the under-14 Northern Carnival, Judd has taken every competition in his stride.

He first put the Darling Downs on notice during the 2023-24 pre-season, where he had a stellar run through the Brisbane Century Cricket and Steketee Cup competitions, scoring three centuries in the space of a month, which included a stellar 153 off 116 balls for the Toowoomba Falcons.

Fraser Judd after winning the Steketee Cup with Toowoomba.

“If I look back at it now, it has been a real good few years but I am just always looking to get better and see what I can do to get better and improve,” Judd said.

“There’s always something to get better at.

“The last couple of years have been unreal, so much has happened and so much has changed and led me to where I am now.”

While Judd said the stakes are far higher in some of the competitions in the state’s south, in some ways, there is actually less pressure to perform, with a wider variety of tournaments available for him to turn heads with the bat and ball.

“There’s always something on, right now I’ve got Tavs in Brisbane and I’ll be playing grade in Toowoomba as well as in Toombul,” he said.

“We’ve got the country 16s coming up and BPL has just gone, there’s a lot of opportunities down here I’ve just been lucky enough to be picked in all of them.

“I have been going pretty well so it’s a bit different to up north where once or twice a year there’s a carnival where you get three days to have a crack.

“Whereas down here there’s a lot more opportunities to have a crack.

“If you don’t succeed once then you got a few more opportunities to back it up.”

The 15-year-old revealed one of the biggest areas he has looked to improve upon since settling in the Garden City.

“I’m learning that cricket is probably a lot more mental than physical,” he said.

“It is just about discovering the mental side of it, you can get to training a much as you want, there’s all the opportunities and facilities down here in terms of training.

“But discovering mental training, just unlocking mental strength and working my way around problems, so I think when you get to a certain point, everyone’s got a good technique and everyone can bowl well, but I’m tyring to develop my mental game to take myself further.”

In terms of where he hopes to take himself, the chance to make his mark for the Queensland Bulls like TGS Old Boy Martin Love is one of his dreams.

“That’s one of the ultimate goals, looking ahead obviously we got the 17s Queensland squad and stuff like that that I will be hoping to crack into, but I like to think there’s a big end goal like the Bulls or something like that,” Judd said.

“I like to complete little goals that will take me higher, instead of just looking straight to the stars you got to set little goals and keep improving bit by bit and eventually I’ll try and find myself up there one day.”

Fraser Judd (back row, third from left) with the CQ Centurions in 2022.

Aside from finding his feet in a city more than 500km from his hometown, Judd revealed some of the biggest highlights of his career.

“My first ton was a pretty good day I guess, like I always wanted to score a hundred but once I scored that first one they kinda kept rolling,” he said.

“It was a long time ago now, when I look back at it now, there was a lot bigger things to be done, when I was 12 I just wanted to set out to make the Queensland Schoolboys side and that was when I really started to work hard and train hard and get better.

“I actually ended up cracking into the Queensland Schoolboys side when I was 12 and that was a pretty big achievement but unfortunately we didn’t get to go away that year for nationals.

“A few weeks ago I actually got in the 15s schoolboys side and we went away to nationals. “That was an unreal experience really, we went to Mackay it was just a great experience seeing what the other states are like compared to us and what other blokes are like from other states.”