Tuesday thoughts

Nothing really happening on the county cricket front just now, with the exception of Kevin Pietersen signing for Surrey to the end of next season. Given that they look like missing Mark Ramprakash for most of it they could do with an in form KP, but are likely to see very little of him unless he has a wretched tour of Australia.


Mark Cosgrove has been talking about Glamorgan’s travails and was interestingly saying that ‘they’ have problems. I might be getting into semantics and reading too much into it, but ‘they’ isn’t ‘we’, which suggests he is not an entirely happy bunny. While a T20 contract is on the table I would be very surprised if he took it up. I think his talents might be of interest to Gloucestershire, which wouldn’t be a massive move in terms of distance. Their fans still speak of the blistering starts that Craig Spearman gave them a few years back and Cosgrove is the most likely to replicate that. Given that they seem unlikely to retain James Franklin, they, like us, have a vacancy in that area.

As picked up on IMWT, Cosgrove has a British passport and could theoretically play alongside an overseas player for his county of choice one day. Much will depend on how his one-year contract for Tasmania goes, as the Australian still harbours desire to play for his country. I don’t see that happening, but I’ve also heard that a reason for him not to ‘go British’ is that he would need to undergo the requisite fitness checks pre-season. You can make up your own minds on that one, but it pre-supposes that Australians don’t have such things, which is nonsense.

Part of the reason he left South Australia was their concerns over his level of fitness, but Tasmania didn’t see a problem and he hardly struggled in Wales.

I know from the comments on IMWT that some fans would like him at Derbyshire. I’d not be unhappy either, but if John Morris was to go down that route the natural assumption would be that Greg Smith would remain skipper. I wouldn’t see Cosgrove fulfilling that role, partly because of inexperience but primarily because of his size. Prolific he may be, but he is hardly in a position to set an example on the fitness front. Interestingly, Glamorgan have one or two other ‘chunky’ lads…

Smith hasn’t had a prolific winter thus far for the Mountaineers in Zimbabwe, but maybe he’s saving himself for 2011. Interestingly Chris Harris is also in that country as an overseas ‘star’, which surprised me somewhat as I thought him longsince retired. Presumably he got a reference from Derbyshire after his brief star turn for us a few years back…

Elsewhere in the world, AB de Villiers broke the South African Test record for highest individual innings when smacking an unbeaten 278 off Pakistan. This removed the brilliant Graeme Pollock from the record book. I would love to see AB do something Pollock never did and play county cricket, as he would be a great draw. At 26 he averages mid-forties in all forms of the game and is a class act. A devout Christian, maybe his religion might mitigate against regular Sunday cricket, but he would pull in the fans should anyone manage to secure his services.

Like a few others others though, his IPL stints have made him a wealthy man, so it may be that his talents remain in the international arena.

Finally tonight, it is sad to report the death of former Worcestershire and Northamptonshire batsman Jim Yardley, who has passed away in Canada at the age of 64. Yardley was the great ‘nurdler’ of my youth and seemed to only have the nudge off his hip and the steer through gulley as shots. His average of mid-twenties belied his usefulness as a batsman who had to be dug out and who rescued a few lost causes in his time. He was also a very good slip fielder. That a player of perhaps modest talent made a good career for himself was an inspiration to club players such as myself.

Rest easy Jim.