Weekend thoughts

Sorry it has been quiet on the blogging front for the past few days but there's been precious little to report on the county front.

Zander de Bruyn moved from Somerset to Surrey, which surprised me. He's a good player in Division One with one of the better county sides, yet has moved to Division Two. I would think it is purely a financial move, but could turn out a shrewd one for the Ovalites as de Bruyn is only a year away from getting a British passport. He will compensate them for the likely loss of Mark Ramprakash for most of next year and may mark another swing in the Kolpak market.

I understand that the demands of some domestic players are such that counties can even take the hit of financial penalties from the ECB and be better off signing a decent Kolpak. Now that such players need recent international experience to qualify, such players as Neil McKenzie, de Bruyn and (probably) Makhaya Ntini make attractive propositions. The latter will almost certainly appear in the county game next summer and on the basis of his form for Kent last year would be an inspired signing.

By my very quick calculation, there are 25-30 players who were released last season by their counties currently without a deal and that, as we approach Christmas, tells its own story.

Elsewhere, Greg Smith has bowled some parsimonious spells of late for the Mountaineers in South Africa, most recently 15 overs for just 24 against the Matabeleland Tuskers (imagine that name on the back of a size small shirt!) Greg has been a little short of runs, but  there's a lot of cricket left over there.

As for the Ashes, I'm ever more convinced that England will win easily. The Aussie attack looks pretty innocuous to me. I'm baffled by how far Mitchell Johnson has gone back and the rest look like a fairly ordinary county attack. Johnson was suggested by a correspondent on 606 recently as an overseas player for us next season, but I don't see it. At 29 he should be approaching his peak, whereas right now his career appears in decline. As for their spinners, while I never thought Nathan Hauritz a world-beater, surely he's better than Xavier Doherty, who looks little better than a net bowler?

The Aussies do have a lot of good batsmen, as evidenced by the likes of David Hussey, Adam Voges, Michael Klinger, Shaun Marsh, Phil Jaques and Phil Hughes. One of these would do nicely for us next season, though I suspect one or more may earn recalls before this series is out. Katich and North are both close to last chance saloon and I still feel that Shane Watson is better suited to the middle order.

Otherwise that's it for now. Unless there's more overnight snow I should manage work tomorrow for the first time since Tuesday after a lot of digging this weekend and its only three weeks until Christmas...