Good comments!

I'm always pleased to see your comments and yesterday brought a rich crop. To clarify what I said earlier in the week, and what most people are now doing, please put your name on posts if you don't have a Google ID. I'll not delete those that are making a positive comment, but I'll only allow negative ones if the person is big enough to to add their name and it isn't personal. Blogger allows me to block all comments that aren't from people signed up to the blog or Google members, but that seems a tad draconian at this stage. Hopefully I don't need to go down that path...

John made an excellent point yesterday that we need to replace Steffan Jones and really need two T20 players from overseas next season, as well as replacing Greg Smith. What we do in these areas comes down to budget, of course, and how Karl Krikken sees the development of young players. On the face of it, Smith would need replaced, but I would still like to see Dan Redfern given greater bowling opportunities and we don't know how well Peter Burgoyne will kick on next year. We cannot say, for example, that Jon Clare might not continue to improve and perhaps become the all-rounder at number six. Maybe greater responsibility could be the making of him.

I agree we may well need to replace Jones as we have only Palladino, Groenewald, Clare, Footitt and Turner. Foottitt has rarely played this summer with injury, Turner has been erratic and young hopes Atif Sheikh and Matt Higginbottom have also, somewhat worryingly, missed most of the campaign. Where we go for that replacement is anyone's guess, though Chris Wright at Essex is out of contract this summer and is sure to attract interest from a few places.

If Burgoyne is going to need a year or couple of years, Jake Needham doesn't recover his lost form and Tom Knight goes to university, a spin option might also be required, but again, we have to realise that players can and will develop over the winter and only the coaching staff have the answers. Again, an all-rounder like David Wainwright might be an option, but we don't want to block the paths of Burgoyne and Knight as Venkat did years ago the career of Bob Swindell. Not that I'm suggesting that the able Wainwright is a spinner in the same bracket as the Indian, you understand...

I don't expect a winter of frenzied activity as the club will primarily go down the youth route, but if there are opportunities for the right players at the right price, our finances are in good hands and the structure is as strong as it has ever been.

The overseas role and the T20 player(s) will take a lot of time though. With the IPL having skewed the market, finding the right player at an affordable price post-IPL must be a nightmare. After six weeks in India at 750K-plus, few of the big names will commit to another month in England for 100K or less, even if their international commitments allowed it.

I am a big fan of Chris Grant and he has shown himself a real leader by accepting the chairman's role post-Amott and in not shying away from awkward issues. His only mistake so far, for me, was in referring to a landmark signing, something I think even this genial and astute businessman will struggle to attract due to circumstances beyond his control.

It won't stop a lot of work in the winter though and I look forward to seeing what he eventually comes up with.