An excellent idea for Derbyshire to field a side in the Premier Cup next season!
This will give the young players an opportunity to play good, competitive cricket and build up team spirit and a competitive edge in so doing. It has worked well for Yorkshire over recent years, so that one gets a big thumbs up from me.
Staying with the Premier League, a correspondent on 606 queries why Gemaal Hussain of Gloucestershire was missed by Derbyshire when he played in the league last season. Aside from the fact that the contributor sullied the comment with an unnecessary and rude reference to John Morris, the answer is fairly obvious.
27 wickets at 28 in the league was hardly a strong argument for bringing him in on trial, especially when he had already been rejected by Essex, Nottinghamshire, Sussex and Worcestershire. The contributor does a grave disservice to John Morris, Andrew Brown and Karl Krikken if he thinks they were unaware of him, as the three see as much league cricket as possible. For all we know they did trial him, but such games can see good players have a bad day and average ones play a blinder. The history of the game is littered with players who were rejected and then went on to big things. Essex rejected Jack Hobbs and Warwickshire turned down Hedley Verity - they don’t get much bigger than those names.
I would argue that you wouldn’t necessarily expect a league cricketer who had been rejected four times and was hardly setting the heather on fire to be a leading county bowler, but to the player’s credit he managed it, at least this season. By the same token, the game has seen many one season wonders, some on our own doorstep. I’d also suggest that any semi-respectable seamer would have taken wickets at Bristol this year…
Hussain may go on to be the lynchpin of the Gloucestershire attack or he may never again recapture the glories of 2010. Time will tell on that one, but if we turn out to have missed out on a rough diamond, we’re not the first and most assuredly will not be the last.
hi
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