More on Steffan...

There’s been a couple of comments on my lunchtime article earlier today on the return of Steffan Jones. See how dedicated I am? As Whitney Houston once sang - I'm saving all my lunch for youuuuuuuuuuuuu....

One asked what had happened to Derbyshire’s fitness coach and I have to say I don’t know. What I will say is that fitness and physical conditioning for bowling all day are probably two different things. I would have thought that Steffan and the fitness coach Julian Calefato could work closely together. I dare say that is something that will emerge when the news breaks from the club.

The other question is how Jones can combine being a full time cricketer, conditioning and bowling coach. Again, the club may have more to say on that one, but I wouldn’t have thought the tasks especially onerous.

My thoughts would be that the bulk of the conditioning work – establishing the principles for bowlers to follow and so forth – would be done pre-season anyway. Once the cricket starts is when the conditioning work is seen to best effect and from then on it is a case of individuals maintaining their exercise regime. The coaching would be straightforward to do during practice sessions and Jones knows his own game well enough to be able to combine the two.

There would be an element of irony if he broke down next year, but I’d be confident he can handle this, as John Morris undoubtedly is.

John grew up in a Derbyshire side where seamers were rotated to keep them fresh and I don’t see that changing next year. The key to that, of course, is having enough guys fit enough to rotate, but Jones will not play all of the matches, any more than the others will do. As Kim Barnett proved with Holding, Malcolm, Bishop, Mortensen, Warner and Newman, the way to have your quickies firing in September is to rest them when there is an opportunity throughout the season.

It is an excellent signing and a sensible move. Jones is a highly respected and popular cricketer and, like James Pipe, can move on to the next stage of his career in an environment where he will be comfortable.

Finally for now, Mastervillain asks if I have something else in mind over the spinner that we so obviously need. Not really, but with the new regulations I just cannot see us signing Jason Brown.

If we were going to sign Middlebrook we may well have done so by now and I think Monty Panesar is out of our price range. Like Baldrick in Blackadder, John Morris may well have a cunning plan and we'll all have to wait to see if that is the case.

Maybe Venkat's coming back...