Monday musings

A few years back, Elvis Costello had a decent-sized hit with the old George Jones country music classic "A Good Year for the Roses". That may well have been the case (and ours have been pretty good this summer, despite the rain) but its been a distinctly average one for overseas players.

I have always been firm about overseas players. For a batsman to justify the expense of bringing them over, an average of 45-50 HAS to be achieved. Forty is OK, but a decent county player can make 30-40 and I've never seen the point of bringing over someone who is little better than you already have. We had our share of under-achievers at Derbyshire, with Jon Moss being only average, Shahid Afridi poor and Michael Slater a major disappointment. Similarly, for bowlers wickets should be taken under 25 each, though a little give and take has to be allowed for unfavourable conditions.

Looking at the championship statistics, Martin Guptill is a standout among batsmen, averaging 50 from 600 runs. Chris Rogers has scored 770 runs at Middlesex, albeit at a lower average (40) than usual, Ashwell Prince has 877 runs at 46, while Ramnaresh Sarwan has 845 runs at 42 for Leicestershire. Most overseas batsmen have found this summer a challenge, with Simon Katich (40) Michael Klinger (29) and Alviro Petersen (21) much lower than might have been expected.

Mind you, Moises Henriques average of 5, batting at five in the early season, was a salutory lesson in taking a gamble at Glamorgan, while Jacques Rudolph's surprisingly low 22 was a disappointment at Surrey and highlights the difficulties of early season wickets, making Guptill's statistics all the more laudable.

Having cited the above, I'd have to say that Usman Khawaja owes us runs in our last championship matches, as he's been low on runs thus far on steadily improving tracks. A century against the Unicorns doesn't really count in my book and there have been few innings of note other than against his fellow countrymen. Usman came over to press his claims for the national side and at this stage hasn't done that. I hope he turns it around in the crucial matches to come as he is a popular and good cricketer, but the reality is that it hasn't gone for him so far.

The two standouts on the bowling front this summer have been Jeetan Patel (46 wickets at 22)  for Warwickshire, a major factor in their fine season and Steve Magoffin at Sussex. The latter has 300 championship runs at 27 and 46 wickets at 18 and has proved a superb signing, one who may well get a contract for another summer.

Yet there are no guarantees in the game. Last summer Chaminda Vaas was a standout for Northamptonshire, a major factor in their promotion push with 70 wickets at 21 and 400 runs at 27. Yet this summer has been one too many for the 38 year old. I saw him in the early season at Derby, where he moved with the alacrity of an arthritic hippo, bowled gentle dobbers and looked fairly disinterested. Fast forward to August and he has averaged 6 with the bat and has six wickets at 47. "Vaas won't play again this season" said the headline the other day. I don't see him being missed, with those statistics...

Elsewhere, Gerard Brophy of Yorkshire has become the latest senior cricketer to be released. A solid county professional with a good record, he had several more summers in him, but the younger Andrew Bairstow will take the gloves there from now on - always assuming he doesn't become an England regular, of course.

Finally tonight, Leicestershire's dogged tailend resistance saw them prevent Northamptonshire from closely joining the pack chasing Derbyshire in division two. We're 41 points ahead of them and 26 clear of our nearest challengers, Hampshire and Yorkshire, with a game in hand on all of them.

We will never have a better chance of promotion than this summer, with 120 points to play for, while our opponents have only 96. A win at Headingley would go a long way to making this young squad only the fifth in our long history to win a trophy.

Now THAT'S something to shout about...