I am pleased that those in charge at Derbyshire County Cricket Club have seen sense and opened the purse strings to enable the signing of New Zealand batsman Henry Nicholls, an excellent, up and coming player.Even more pleased that his signing makes it appear as if I have a crystal ball, when in fact I just applied a fair old dollop of logic to my suggestion at the weekend.
We have a New Zealand coach, together with an assistant coach from the same country. There's an obvious 'in' there, plus the Kiwi players are about the only country who are not currently touring or preparing to tour somewhere else. They are in pre-season though, which helps and from there it was a case of looking who had played IPL, or was playing CPL, who was already in this country and who would most benefit from a county stint in the furtherance of their career.
That took out a lot of players and left me with one name from their international squad - thus we welcome Henry Nicholls to Derbyshire.
He is an impressive left-hander who sprung to prominence last winter with an unbeaten 145 against England, having also scored a Test century against South Africa. While his first-class average, in the mid-thirties, has room to improve, his T20 one is over thirty, which for a middle order batsman in the format is the sign of a pretty good player.
Tom Latham has done extremely well at Durham, Corey Anderson and Martin Guptill likewise at Somerset and Worcestershire, while Ish Sodhi's work at Trent Bridge is well known to us. We should have seen how Mitchell Santner fared for us, but have enjoyed wonderful service from Lockie Ferguson.
Having said all that, Henry has some tough acts to follow, but if he is more John Wright than Neil Broom we will do OK. Mind you, Broom, like Hamish Rutherford, could hit a ball on his day and Nicholls must be rated by John Wright and Grant Bradburn.
And if he plays even one innings that gets us to the knock out stage, it is money well spent, as well as being absolutely the right thing to do, as I said the other day.
Welcome to Derbyshire, Henry.
We all hope that your stay is memorable, for the right reasons.
A good signing and well predicted Peakfan. We have bowling options in the Xl as it stands plus Sherif on the sidelines probably itching for a game so I am all for a batsmen in fact I mentioned it a week or so ago (who I had no idea but will leave that to Peakfan). Bring it on and good luck Henry.
ReplyDeleteI hope we put on a couple of friendles or get him a second team t20 chance to acclimatise. A big frustration I’ve long had are overseas pros who fly in a few days before the first game. Even Rampaul he’s not overseas but he wasn’t there for pre season. It annoys me.
ReplyDeleteIt's a tough ask - more for a batsman I think - to come in for such a short time and adapt straight away. He was very impressive against England and the fact he's played Bag Bash is a positive.
ReplyDeleteWell done to the club for sticking their necks out on this - and also for getting a couple more games out of Riaz; notice that Durham have lost Imran Tahir already.
Must be aiming to win the two home games and hope for a repeat of last year at Worcester. Let's just hope that the weather doesn't work against us - forecast isn't great for Saturday.
Really pleased with this signing Peakfan. Huge week for the county. Hopefully Henry is the man to get us across the line and qualify for Finals Day - and beyond! James
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