Sounds familiar

There’s been a few mentions of Yorkshire left arm spinner David Wainwright around the boards in recent weeks, so it was interesting reading comments from the York Evening Press about the player, in a piece where they gave him 4 out of ten for his contribution to the season.


Nightmare season for the left-arm spinner. Played very little cricket in all forms. Blighted by a knee injury, triggered by a change of action when on tour with England Performance Programme last winter

Hmmm. So they’re still trying to change things when players are away with England? Reminds me of when Devon Malcolm found the selectors trying to remodel his action on tour in South Africa, neglecting the fact that his action had got him that far, so couldn’t be all bad. Let’s just hope that they’ve not done irreparable harm to the player, who I think has decent ability.

There’s a good article in the Derby Telegraph today on Matt Lineker, which sounds encouraging. You can see it at:

http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/sport/Lineker-decides-time-right-Derbys/article-2671242-detail/article.html

It will be interesting to see if the player can make the step up from outstanding weekend cricketer to a good county player. I daresay that the mindset will be different when you’re earning a living from the game and that may be an adjustment, but Lineker sounds like a player who has his game worked out and only perhaps needs it fine tuned. Some may cite the example of Dan Birch, who failed to translate his club form to first class level, but Lineker’s record is far in excess of Birch’s and he appears to be more of an athlete, something that conspired against the latter. I’m not sure if his bowling is likely to be used at first class level, but with the option open to extend the deal if it works out, the club have nothing to lose and everything to gain in giving Lineker an extended trial.

I doubt anyone would say that he hadn’t earned it.

On a different tack, it may be that there’s a few Pakistan cricketers available as overseas players next summer, to add to the New Zealand and South African ones already discussed. Surely they will not be invited back to play neutral soil Tests in England after the farce of this summer?

Umar Gul, Saeed Ajmal and Mohammad Aamer are very fine bowlers, irrespective of anything else in the background and would enhance most county sides. Gul is more of a one day force, but Ajmal and Aamer are exciting talents and it will be interesting to see if anyone will take a chance on them should there be no invitation to the national side to play here.

Finally in answer to queries following last night's post, Robin Peterson would need to play a few games before he would qualify. I think he needs to have played 15 one day games in the past five years, but I'll attempt to clarify that, as I'm not sure if T20 matches carry the same weight as one day internationals. Then again, there's the possibility that he may not want to come back...

I bet John Morris keeps an eye on that one though.

As for the England line up suggested by Dave, its hard to argue. The only questionable one might be Tremlett, but I can't think of one outside the top four that I would take to be honest. As Dave says, at least Tremlett, if he stays fit, gets steepling bounce, but there are apparently question marks about his temperament, so that place will be interesting to see tomorrow.

Until tomorrow.