Those words were very much appreciated and I am grateful to you all for taking the time to message, or to send me an email.
I'm not doing much at the moment, on medical advice, which has afforded me the opportunity to watch Haider Ali in the PSL.
It is quickly obvious, in watching him, that he has talent to spare. He is one of these mercurial players who seems to have a shot, sometimes two, for every ball. What will be interesting in the coming months will be to see how he tempers his approach at the top of the order and on English wickets.
Even in the context of T20, a couple of his dismissals have been poor. In one of them, having just come in, he stepped outside leg stump to attempt to penetrate a fairly well populated offside and was comprehensively bowled by the leg spinner. The match situation did not require such an approach and it will be interesting to see how that improves under Mickey Arthur.
In the game yesterday, he played several scintillating strokes then charged, rather than sashayed, down the wicket in the manner of Ranjitsinjhi, in the famous Beldam photograph. It was a far from glorious end to an innings that promised much.
I think that as supporters we will need to temper our expectations. I don't expect batting conditions to be as favourable as they were last year, when April and May saw uncharacteristically docile tracks. In any other year it may well have been Suranga Lakmal with a perpetual grin on his face, instead of Shan Masood, but the latter got himself in, got into a rhythm and drank at the well while conditions were in his favour.
Ali is a completely different player, closer to Shahid Afridi than Masood in style, though a better batter. Once he grasps his responsibilities and the conditions he will entertain and, perhaps like Chris Wilkins, will be well worth the entrance money when he comes off.
We must remember that he is relatively inexperienced and still a young man. He will make the mistakes that all young men make, but provide the fearless approach that is also their major attribute.
If he succeeds on a regular basis, Derbyshire should score runs fast enough to force positive results, which they need to do, with only three points for a draw this year. Too many sides last year took the easy way out and ground out draw after draw, which would really do no one any favours, this time around.
It should all make for outstanding entertainment and I'm sure that I could probably put a capital E on that word, in due course.
Enjoy your evenings, I will be back soon, when I can.
obviously disappointed he wont be with us for the matches, but as u say no one is more deserving of international recognition than Wayne, is there any form of compensation the club get (from the ICC) for losing such an asset?
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