Something for the weekend

I was talking cricket with a couple of pals at work today and one of them asked me who I would most like to see named as Derbyshire's T20 "game changer" for this season. Neil is a Kent fan and somewhat despairing of what is happening to his club, while Donald is a Durham fan who is quietly confident of their chances for the season. He's also happy that they have signed Herschelle Gibbs for the T20.

 I've said before that we need something different. A hitter who can clear the boundaries would be good, but a quick bowler, a "go to" man in the style of Charl Langeveldt, would make a big difference. I wrote in the week that we had a good quota of batsmen and if we brought someone in we need to remember that someone else misses out. Much depends on the market and I see little sense in bringing in someone who isn't substantially better than what we already have, while signing two overseas batsmen might not make the most sense either...

I think our target, having given it thought, will be a seam bowler. For all the appeal of Duminy and du Plessis, we only have five seamers for a season's cricket at present. With a little luck that would get us through the Championship and Pro 40, but T20 is physically demanding and I think we need someone else to give them a breather.

Mind you, as I wrote the other night, available quick bowlers are in short supply, with Nannes signed by Surrey, Tait and Lee injured, Steyn and Morkel wrapped in cotton wool by South Africa. There's not many others out there, especially with Australia touring here for one-dayers in the summer and New Zealanders out of the reckoning (because otherwise we'd have had Martin Guptill).

Sadly, the type of players who would make a real difference are, to my knowledge, already signed. Abdul Razzaq is a super T20 player and made a huge contribution  to Leicestershire's win last season. Tight overs at the end of the innings and some power hitting to lengthen targets made a major contribution to the team. Razzaq was also a standout for Hampshire as they won it the year before - surely no coincidence.

In a similar vein is a player I watched and admired in Australia's Big Bash. Rana Naved-Ul-Hasan has given sterling service to Sussex over recent years and for the last three winters has become a folk hero in Tasmania, taking them to the semi-finals of the competition with his potent combination of yorkers and variations of pace. His dangerous hitting would have got them all the way too, if not for an odd bit of captaincy that left his arrival at the crease until too late.

That's the sort of player we could do with, but their counties know when they are on to a good thing and will doubtless be hanging on to them both. They offer something whether their team is batting or bowling and in an ideal world Karl Krikken and Chris Grant would source someone like that.

No tall order then. A six-hitter who bowls economically at critical times in the innings. Mission Impossible? Or is there someone out there in the world game that I've missed?

Elsewhere Leicestershire have signed Ramnaresh Sarwan, a good batsman who could turn out to be an inspired signing and who should be in a first-choice West Indian side. Weight and fitness issues have hampered him in recent years, but if he is fully fit they could have picked up a gem, one with a point to prove.

There have been a few critical comments around the blog and the Forum on the news that Leek has no cricket this year, but I'm with the club on this one. The timing of fixtures meant it was only feasible to play the Durham game there, but the traffic infrastructure of Leek with  people heading there in large quantities as others were leaving would have been an issue. I wouldn't have envied Keith Loring in trying to sell it commercially either - we've not developed the County Ground for nowt, you know.

Leek will return another year - the club have seen the possibilities there - but we need to trust some very professional people at the helm to do the best they can for our club.

Finally tonight, there's also a comment or two about the strength of the squad as the season approaches. I'll accept that we've lost senior players in Sutton, Smith and Jones without replacing their experience. Yet we've got to give young talent its head and fans need to remember that the only way we could keep key players such as Madsen, Groenewald, Durston, Palladino and Clare was by giving them improved deals commensurate with their talent.

Money only goes so far, especially in a small club like ours.