There is nothing like Hussain...

With excuses to Rodgers and Hammerstein, that’s perhaps the song going through the minds of Somerset fans this morning, after Gemaal Hussain followed Steve Kirby from Gloucestershire to their West Country rivals.

Somerset and Warwickshire seem to be the only sides with any money to spend so far this winter, which suggests that a lot of players with somewhat inflated salary demands may be unlucky. There are many currently out of contract or released and I’m far from convinced that there is much money in the counties to re-employ most of them.

Indeed, Gloucestershire’s Chief Executive Alan Richardson admitted in the Bristol Post early in the week that he expected ‘another four’ senior players from the club to depart as the club slashes its playing budget. He did say that two or three might come in, but that they intended to bring through youngsters from their academy setup, in much the same way that Kent have admitted they will operate.

Meanwhile, various clubs with ambitious ground building plans are feeling the pinch. I still can’t get my head around why we have so many international grounds developing with commensurate costs when only two, or at the most three international sides actually attract crowds that could fill existing capacities. Even at Derbyshire, where the commercial team have done an exceptional job in recent years (and won awards today - well done guys!) I’m still a little baffled by the new stand.

That it looks impressive and affords an excellent view of the play is beyond dispute. My only query is why we spent a considerable sum on increasing the capacity when we are a long way from bursting at the seams. There were some very good performances in one-day games by Derbyshire last season, but even their crucial T20 match against Northamptonshire was watched by at best an average crowd. The performance in that game hardly acted as an inducement for many to return. I know it’s a football city, as the 25,000-plus who attend Pride Park for home matches testifies, but surely there should be more than 1500 attending the T20, with all the associated razzamatazz?

The Daily Telegraph reported this morning that the T20 will be retained at its 2010 level next year, so there will again be 16 high-energy matches to play, eight of them at home. Could a T20 season ticket be worthwhile, offering a discount when paying up front and a greater incentive to get down to the ground when you’ve done so? It may be if there's a repetition of the many grey evenings that we seemed to play on this year, while bringing in a few of Derby County’s players for signing sessions and photos might encourage some footy fanatics to try a different class of game…

Perhaps the absence of the World Cup as a counter-attraction will also help to bring in additional fans, but based on last year I would be surprised if many counties opt to bring in a second overseas player. Too many high profile, high cost players performed poorly and simply didn’t warrant the expenditure. Brad Hodge, Andrew Symonds, Dave Warner – these guys will not have come cheap, yet averaged 28, 20 and 20 respectively. Most people will have permitted a wry smile when Essex’s gamble in paying £10,000 to Dwayne Bravo for finals day backfired bigtime and Hampshire's success had a lot to do with fine performances by youngsters.

All this leads me to think that Derbyshire cannot fail to be affected and that we will not necessarily see many signings this winter. With Test match revenues plummeting and John Morris playing non-qualified players to ensure we remain competitive, we won’t get as much as we would hope for from the ECB. We also carry a reasonable size of staff (assuming they all stay fit, of course) and perhaps the job is now to get the best out of what we have.

For what its worth, I think we already have a solid squad that with the right overseas player, better luck with injuries and good team spirit could do OK next summer.

More on this before the weekend.