Monday musings

There's talk below yesterday's post about the best side to start the summer in the County Championship and I find it hard to disagree with those posting at this stage.

Assuming that all are fit and well, the likeliest starting XI for me is:

Godleman
Madsen
Durston
Chanderpaul
Redfern
Whiteley
Wainwright
Clare
Poynton/Johnson
Palladino
Groenewald

There is plenty in reserve in an albeit young squad. Perhaps the biggest question is the position in the order of numbers 7-9 and you could pretty much argue the case for any sequence.

It looks a good side and amid the euphoria of the Chanderpaul signing it is important to remember that any success we have this summer will be the result of the kind of team effort that we saw last summer. If we rely on Shiv alone to score runs then a season of struggle will ensue. I have no doubts he will get his fair share, but a feature of last year was the contribution to totals by everyone down the order.

I think our bowling is good enough to get sides out and if we show similar resilience with the bat we will have a decent campaign. Success will initially be to stay up, but there is enough talent in that side to do more than scrape through by the skin of our teeth.

Going back to Shivnarine Chanderpaul, some of you may not know that he has a son Tagenarine who is himself highly rated. At 16 the lad seems to be one of the brightest talents in the Caribbean and there's an interesting article on him in the Guyana Times from this weekend (I get it delivered...)

I don't know if Chanderpaul junior will be coming across to England this summer, but I've a suspicion that a few local club sides might fancy giving him a game if he did.

Mind you, he has a tough act to follow...