The joy of signings

Here we are, if not in the bleak midwinter (though yesterday felt like it)then a long way from the resumption of County cricket.

Tomorrow night we have our cricket AGM at the club and it couldn't be less like cricket weather. Then again, after last summer, maybe it is pretty close. Yesterday we had high winds and heavy rain, just like August...

When you're a fan of a team, each winter brings hope that you will make signings to galvanise the side and change fortunes, when the reality is that the following season brings the same old, age old problems to the fore.

I really feel that we are not too far away from a very good Derbyshire side, but it has not always been so. Winters have brought news of Derbyshire signings, potential and otherwise. Some have been met with interest (Garry Park recently), some with astonishment (James Graham-Brown - why?) and a few with unbelievable excitement.

I remember when we were set to sign Dennis Lillee back in the 1970's. The best young quick bowler in the world was coming to Derbyshire and we anticipated him destroying teams as he had done England.

Then he did his back and we ended up with (I think) Venkat...

There have been signings that resulted from a scouring of the Professional Cricketers Rest Home for the Elderly. Phil Sharpe, Ron Headley, Fred Rumsey, Fred Trueman - at one point you could have been forgiven for thinking the club was sponsored by SAGA.

Some were exciting but never materialised. Nathan Astle, Mohammad Yousuf and Mahela Jayawardene were all set to sign and pulled out for varying reasons. Jacques Rudolph was another (why didn't we check if he fancied playing as a Kolpak, instead of letting Yorkshire benefit?)

Geoff Boycott too. In the days of his disputes with Yorkshire, there were strong suggestions that he was set to move across the border to us and discussions were held, yet it never materialised.

There have been plenty of strange signings. Shahid Afridi was signed for April and May when he had built a reputation for being a flat track slogger. The results were predictable. He barely made a run (nor a defensive stroke) and his leggies hardly turned on early season wickets. Mohammad Kaif was signed as an up and coming Indian batsman but found the County grind difficult. Travis Birt was retained in place of the soon-to-be European player Michael Di Venuto and we all know how that turned out.

I would love to have been a fly on the wall at some of these discussions, just as long as I could have landed on the table and told the participants that they were mad. I'll defer to professionals on grounds of knowledge in many cases, but the logic of these decisions baffles me now as it did then.

The same with the signing of Peter Kirsten over Allan Lamb. No problem with the former, one of our finest-ever batsmen, but we could have had them both. No one gets it right every time, but we are looking for decisions that illustrate common sense has been applied.

In both of the winter signings so far, the signs are good in that respect. Garry Park was wanted by Durham, has good averages yet needed regular cricket that they could not offer. We signed him - result. Tim Groenewald is signed as a replacement for Wayne White. Is he a better player? Definitely, so again - result.

Whoever else comes in this winter, all that we as fans can ask for is that an obvious, logical thought process has been applied. As long as they appear an improvement on what we already have, were respected by their former employers and are not yet in a bath chair in the field I'm prepared to give them the benefit.

Yet it's difficult. John Sadler looked a sound signing last year after good seasons with Leicestershire, yet did poorly for us. Dom Telo had a good record in South African cricket (albeit at not quite top level) and also struggled. Nayan Doshi had bowled well in one day cricket for Surrey and did so for us, but rarely looked like bowling out sides who were happy to nudge him around for ones and twos. Then there was Rikki Clarke. Less said the better, I suppose, but most of us were excited by his signing last winter and hoped for a lot better than what later transpired.

So, with a few days of October to go, let's all hope that John Morris has something lined up that will get us through the winter months, anticipating better things when April comes round once more.

On my way home from the AGM tomorrow night I'll probably think of April, looking at a scoreboard that reads Derbyshire 375-2 and global dominance. As always, I'll settle for competitiveness and a few wins here and there.

Enough for a trophy, of course.