Midweek musings

The turn of the year and a veritable spate of news starts to come out. Mind you, all things are relative and this is in comparison to the few weeks that preceded Christmas...

First up, Derbyshire have offered a three-month trial to Ali Evans, the young seam bowler from Scotland via Loughborough University. That trial starts immediately, so the 23-year old will have pre-season with the rest of the side to impress Karl Krikken, having already managed to convince AJ Harris of his talent.

I was quite amused by the description of him by Karl Krikken in the Derby Telegraph as "he doesn't bowl at great pace but swings the ball". This is at odds with journalists and a couple of players up here in Scotland who have described him in print and to me as "pretty lively". This of course, suggests that there is a world of difference between fast-medium in Scottish circles and in the county game, which I pretty much expected. Quite what the locals here would make of Messrs Footitt and Turner should the sides ever meet is a moot point...

I'm pleased for the lad and it again shows that the club are encouraging their own. Evans took good wickets last year for the Seconds and for Swarkestone and, like all of his kind, can be expensive if the line isn't right. Yet taking wickets can become a habit and Evans has shown he can do that. The trial should enable an informed decision to be made on his future yet still leave time for a plan B if he is deemed not quite of the required standard. I wish him well and look forward to reports on his progress.

Meanwhile, the club has announced that they will play pre-season fixtures against Yorkshire and Warwickshire. The latter is a two-day game on April 1 and 2, while the former is on Saturday 31 March. Yes, you read it right folks, we are playing cricket on the last day of March, when in all likelihood the polar bears will be wearing body warmers and the penguins will be in sleeping bags. I can't imagine what it must be like to field at slip at that stage of the year.

The earliest start I ever had was my first-ever game in Scotland, playing on the east coast where, I was reliably informed "it is warmer at this time of year". I can only assume that the chap who made that comment omitted "than the Arctic" from the last sentence. It was April 15 and I took the field wearing pyjama bottoms, long johns and two pairs of trousers on the bottom half, with a vest, T shirt, shirt, two slip overs and long sleeve on top. By dint of my youth and (at that time) speed and agility I fielded point and put down two catches in the early overs as, quite frankly, I couldn't bend my fingers  with the cold! I must have looked like Colin Milburn's younger, fatter brother with all the layers and I prayed the skipper wouldn't ask me to bowl, as I'd have to remove a sweater or two...

Still, these young 'uns of today (said old fogey Peakfan...) will have the handwarmers and rightly so. They'll probably have solar-powered boxes too, providing warmth to the nether regions that might otherwise drop off with the cold. Good luck with that one lads - third man seems a good option to me, if you're interested.

Meanwhile, over in New Zealand, Martin Guptill has said that he prefers Test cricket to T20, which means that the two of us could form an official society. I like some aspects of T20, mainly that it brings a new crowd to the game, but dislike others - the chanting, the music, the dancing girls - with a passion. Don't get me wrong, I like an attractive dancing girl as much as any man (why else do we watch Strictly Come Dancing?) and no one loves their music more than I do, but I don't want it mixed up like a recreational version of bubble and squeak.

In this year's Wisden, the editor writes that the obsession with T20 is detracting from the glory of the boundary by giving too great a glut, and he's right. A boundary breaking the tension of a tight passage of play is one of the glories of the game, but T20 can see you thinking "oh, it's only a four." While a few players still play the classical shots, many more eschew them in favour of cross bat hoiks and ramp shots. The latter seems to work on a one in ten basis; leaving the batsman who played it last weekend against the fast and firing Shaun Tait looking a bit of a berk, on all fours with his leg stump knocked back with a fast yorker.

I'll willingly salivate over any batsman who can hit inside out over extra cover for four or six, or back over the bowlers head, but I can't get overly excited for someone who has top edged a six over the keeper to rapturous applause. Where I come from, we call them mishits. I must be turning into my Dad, who told me that he would sooner have electrodes attached to several important body parts and have 50,000 volts fired through them than go to a T20 again. I took that to mean he wasn't a fan.

Nevertheless, I'm off to check the coming weekend's Big Bash schedule. I might not like the razamatazz, but it is still cricket and I can at least admire improvised and powerful strokeplay and a bowler who mixes his pace and length.

Sometime soon it will be Derbyshire's turn.