Something for the weekend

There’s few better ways to spend an evening as the nights draw in than with your family around you in the living room, chatting about this and that, watching a bit of TV and surfing the net on the laptop.


Vegetating? Yeah, probably, but good for all that and right now is a time in my life when I wish I could stop time and things could stay the way that they are. Except of course we’d then not know who is likely to line up for Derbyshire next summer.

There was an interesting piece on IMWT last night (apologies but I can’t recall the contributor) that suggested the three signings thus far were effectively straight replacements. For Lungley read Turner, for Goddard read Sutton and for Sadler read Lineker. Which meant, according to the article, that we still had the replacements for Peterson, Wagg and Rogers to find. Of course, none of us know if John Morris will get that budget. We hope so, of course, but there are no guarantees at this stage.

The other factor – keeping the earlier TV theme, let’s call it the X factor – is what will happen with regard to the T20. We don’t yet know if the tournament is definitely to be reduced but the thinking money is that sides will have ten matches, rather than 16 next year. What hadn’t been included in the above figures was the money spent on Loots Bosman and Charl Langeveldt. It may not be that much, as perhaps most of it was taken up by Chris Rogers taking a cut while he had a break, but it needs to be considered anyway.

I don’t think too many teams will opt for a T20 specialist next year, as a number of counties were ‘burned’ by under-performing stars. Bosman, Brad Hodge, Simon Katich, Andrew Symonds, Dave Warner – that was just a few of a number of players who performed poorly in their brief stays for the tournament. I’d be surprised if many of them were on performance-related contracts, so counties lost a hefty wad of cash as a result. With so many struggling to stay afloat at present, the extra player may well end up sacrificed.

That being the case, I think 2011 may see sides recruiting overseas stars who are multi-dimensional players, capable of doing well in all formats of the game. A few days ago I referred to the claims of Mark Cosgrove, who has not yet signed a new deal at Glamorgan, while someone who has yet to do the same is James Franklin at Gloucestershire.

I noticed that last night, while reclining on the couch surrounded by my nearest and dearest. While the player may feel some loyalty to John Bracewell, his fellow countryman, there will surely be interest from elsewhere in a very good cricketer.

We can vouch for that! His hundred in the first Pro 40 of the season effectively won the game for them, while his seven wickets on the first morning at Bristol in the Championship ripped us apart. His stats for the season were very impressive. Nearly 900 Championship runs at 33 and 46 wickets at 23 are the figures of a very solid player. He did less one-day bowling because of injury, but averaged 39 from 470 runs in the T20 and 73 from 500 runs in the Pro40.

Do you see what I mean? He has shown himself versatile enough to play in any format and can be proud of a season like that. I obviously haven’t a clue of the figures concerned, nor the availability of the players, but if we could pick up someone like Franklin, or South African Ryan McLaren as overseas player, I don’t think we’d need to worry about changing for the T20 nor bother about bringing a second player in.

If Alviro Petersen fancied a Kolpak stint as a quality batsman who can either open or bat lower down I’d be happy, which would leave a spinner’s berth to fill. I’ll be honest, I genuinely cannot think of anyone at this stage. Paul Harris or Roelof van der Merwe might be prepared to go Kolpak, but that would then rule out Petersen. Would you then try to sign the likes of Usman Afzaal and bring in a spinner? Or try Michael Munday, a decent bowler but one with little more experience than Jake Needham? Maybe we will go with Needham, who is off to South Africa to work with Phil Russell. Now there's a very good coach.

John Morris’ job this winter is akin to someone doing a jigsaw. He’s been putting all the pieces in around the edge and now has to insert the important figures in the middle. Like most jigsaws that I have ever done, it is likely to take some time to complete, but like you I will be following overseas cricket, especially in South Africa, very closely this winter.