A quiet week

As you might expect, the Derbyshire week, after the announcement of the signing of Ravi Rampaul, has been a quiet one.

Off it, there has been the announcement of the membership prices and very good they are. There cannot be a better value membership package in the county game and £139 for a season's cricket is terrific value. Compare it, for example, to Somerset's £179 for four day and fifty-over cricket, with an additional £140 for the T20 and the deal becomes all the better.

With firework displays and the forthcoming festive party season now taking priority, the club will be hoping their off-field work continues to thrive, thus putting more money into the 'playing pot' and enabling the recruitment of better quality players.

The Rampaul announcement - which sounds like a John Grisham novel - was well-timed, just before the memberships came out and I am sure it had the desired effect. I would hope that the prospect of an all-international opening attack next summer whets the appetite of others, as it does mine.

I don't get the comments on Twitter and elsewhere on Rampaul being 'too fat' or 'too old'. He has always been a broad-beamed fella and that is no bad thing if you are running in to bowl as he is. There's a big difference between that and someone who is out of condition, something I don't recall thinking about him when I have seen him.

He has never, from my memory, been an out-and-out fast bowler. Rather one who has decent pace yet moves it each way to good effect. The combination of Viljoen, Davis and Rampaul is an exciting one and it will be one of the best attacks in division two, IF they are all fit.

We must all hope that they are and that further good news is forthcoming in the long winter weeks and months ahead.

I'll be back soon.