Joel Garner, cricketing legend for Somerset  has been appointed Team Manager for the West Indies’ tour to Australia. A poisoned chalice perhaps with WI cricket in the state it is in but let’s hope Joel’s appointment starts things off afresh. It doesn’t get tougher than a trip down Under but the 56-year old will have plenty of respect one hopes from a squad meshed from those that were recently on strike and their replacements.

…Not England’s Tour which I am hoping will get me through the winter with a sufficent enough cricketing fix but all this talk of England players who are South African. Today’s sporting teams transcend the rigid nationality of yesteryear. Admittedly English cricket has a particular history with overseas players switching allegience but not always with utmost success – for Jonathan Trott read the Notts and clearly Aussie bowler Darren Pattinson who popped up from nowhere.

Yes, in cricket you don’t see English cricketers making the switch to go and play for Graeme Smith but all of the current Test players like Strauss, KP and newcomer Trott have served their time in English cricket and I think it’s a media storm in a teacup. Will it give the SA side any incentive, not remotely, they are a class side looking to stay the best in the world, mnotivation enough I suspect. Sure there’ll probably be some tasty sledging but there would have been anyway, it is England after all whom seem to get the blood going of most other sides.

England understandably are playing this whole SA nonsense down and after the injury to Stuart Broad, minds will be focussed on more important cricketing matters….

With Somerset in the market for a speedster who is in the top bracket for speed and wickets, who are the decent punts over the winter? The seasonal AGMs are round the corner and doubtless the management will get polite grilling on this very topic  – though I suspect they’ll only be able to mention the players they were offered or would have liked to have signed. Kabir Ali and Simon Jones have both gone to Hants and there are other counties looking to bolster their attacks with Middx apparently about to announce a double swoop having made pace their priority this winter.

So, here’s my food for thought, ignoring conveniently the small issue of who’s in contract and for how long, what they earn, likelihood of them coming….etc!

Matthew Hoggard (free) - 43 Championship wickets for Yorkshire and a surprise he was released. Not in the express pace category but well worth approaching. Suspect he’ll go to Middx or Leics.

Steve Kirby (Glos) - 64 wickets in Div2  – Stayed down with Glos but happy there.

David Lucas (Northants) – 58 wickets and just failed to get his county up so….

WILD PUNT….

Alex Tudor (Surrey) – Not given too much cricket in an awful Surrey season and when he played, he was, er, annihiliated. Four wickets at an average of over 100

Charlie Shreck (Notts) – An anonymous season after his 2008 was crammed with wickets (58) – swap one title contender for another?

 

Or else…..

i) Charl is cryogenically frozen over the winter (or come to Yorkshire) and emerges feeling like a 21 year old again and ready for 300 overs in 2010.
ii) David Stiff continues where he left off in 2009
iii) Ben Phillips cranks it up and passes 40+ wickets
iv) Murali Kartik gets 97 wickets at 11.63 meaning there’s only the odd couple here and there for anyone else

Craig Kieswetter has made it into the England Performance Programme after all. A strange omission in the first place if you ask me but he’s had a superb season and will be qualified for England in 2010 (I think).

He’s in the ‘B’ group – players with experience of first-class cricket who are expected to need  one to three years of development before graduating into the England team. WHich fits in nicely with our machivellian masterplan to win the title in 2010 and then he can usurp Matt Prior as first-choice gloveman.

Kolpak clampdown for 2010

Kolpak players are being squeezed out of county cricket after the Home Office passed legislation making it harder for those players, typically from countries with trade links with the EU like South Africa, to ply their trade in England next season. Some see Kolpak as strangling English talent by occupying county cricket slots that should be filled by young English talent.

Others saw Kolpak players as an imporant loophole to get foreign players (deemed better than their English equivalents) through the side door. The trickle became a flood as counties exploited the initial ruling and it seemed no coincidence that the smaller counties with less money were often the worse ‘offenders’.  Either way, that door is closing fast  with the ruling that ’only players who have held a valid work permit for four years will be able to continue to be employed as though they were EU citizens by counties. That is unless they have played one Test match in the past two years or five Test matches in the past five.’ (BBC Sport).

So, what does all of this mean for Somerset who have been quick to tap into South Afrtican talent to unashamedly bolster their squad? Well, if I understand it right, not a great deal. Two SA players (Zander De Bruyn and Alfonoso Thomas) are ok due to ‘citizenship’ through marriage while Charl Willoughby qualifies having played county cricket for four years. Somerset have a long association with South African players and certainly not to the detriment of the club but the only possible SA player to possibly come to Taunton will be….the captain of their national side, Graeme Smith! Still, think we’re allowed two overseas players in 20/20 so get Wayne Parnell over here while we’re at it….

Somerset to sign Stephen Cook…not anymore

It will presumably stop young SA talent finding its way to Taunton via our connections. Stephen Cook being a prime example. Having recently thumped a completely chanceless 390 to join his father as a triple centurion (and claiming the highest score in first-class SA cricket)

And where do I stand in all of this? Naive as this might sound, I believe that if you’re good enough, you’ll get your county place so Kolpak players have been important for some counties including Somerset to try and find quality cricketers overseas to compete with bigger counties  – who invariably have the money to attract some of the cream of English talent. Now that the Kolpak episode in county cricket is drawing to a close, the onus will be on English players making the most of these new opportunities.

Peter Trego blasted runs aplenty though defending Champs England had to settle with fourth over the weekend in the Hong Kong Sixes. A long overdue nudge from the selectors and PT has certainly done enough to catch the eye and with the 569 ODIs scheduled in the next 9 months, there might yet be a Somerset player in an England shirt next in 2010.

Wisden’s view of the team Marcus Trescothick has now inherited from Justin Langer. The county roundup for 2009 stressed the issue of the Taunton pitch (Phil Frost must grind his teeth at descriptions of it being a feather bed, road or such like but the point is a fair one) as the crux between Somerset and Durham. Certainly the bowling of Willoughby, Stiff and Phillips was equal to the task away from home while the batting was excellent once more. The report hints at a crossroads – without Langer and Caddick (though the latter has not featured much in 2009) and the importance of the next generation of Suppiah, Hildreth and Kieswetter playing increasingly important roles for the county. Craig Kieswetter in an England sweater (a great new Somerset chant perhaps??) is not such as outlandish as it sounds though I don’t think he’ll walk into the team as fellow saffa KP did.

Trescothick’s captaincy will be interesting though as he’s been vice and is part of the furniture at Taunton, there’s unlikely to be any upheaval. I’ve said it often enough on here but there’s a feeling that Somerset are close to a breakthrough and that first elusive title. Much depends on Kartik who it surprised me to see only got 33 wickets in the Championship. I say only, as that’s a not unreasonable haul but more is expected at Taunton and with Mushie’s frequent soujourns into the 80-90 wicket region, there’s plenty to live up to for those that still wistfully remember the Pakistani master, chirping and whirling his way to another five-wicket haul.

 

The rustic Riversider. Their headline not mine but at least  there’s no mention of being burly. A great read from Wisden’s Jonathan Wilson and interesting to hear a player (whom Somerset fans still pine for in their numbers) distinguish carefree Durham with the apparent bootcamp at Somerset: “It was a very intense atmosphere down there…For me to play and actually succeed…it was a detrimental atmosphere.”

His 5 wickets for seven runs against us a nudge at what we were missing – 43 at an average over 24 in the Championship overall plus 801 runs with the bat. Blackwell has clearly flourished in his first year up at Durham and it’s a relief to him to escape the moribund track at Taunton (“The wicket couldn’t have been worse for me”) – music doubtless to the ears of Murali Kartik though

Perhaps the most surprising aspect was that Ian Blackwell, whilst being scoffed at in the press for his figure, managed 34 ODIs.  Not because he wasn’t or isn’t good enough but he has always seemed the backup option and has done his fair share of touring as a consequence.  His atst of 24 wickets at 36.54 don’t particularly tell of the situations where he often did a fair economical job with the ball.

If he can get his injury (a slap lesion in his shoulder no less) sorted then he’ll remain a key asset for Durham as they aim for a third consecutive title.  Extraordinary stuff from a county that had got to used to finishing last and being lampooned in its infancy in county cricket.

A shame I’ve only seen this extract from his new book but Michael Vaughan is laying out his vision of a shimmering bold future for English cricket.  There were some sound nuggets from the piece I read involving getting pampered (his inference not mine) county pros to return to their club cricket roots from time to time for a spot of humble pie as well as the suggestion that counties play less cricket and get out to India to play there each year as a valuable experience in tough conditions.

Got to agree with him on that one – India is unique and exactly the pressure cooker experience all county pros would benefit from. Just watching the second ODI out in India between the home side and Australia and even the Aussies look a little dumbstruck by the wall of noise and frenzy hitting them as they attempt to chase down 350+.

But seeing as Vaughany has had his pearls of wisdom strung out in public, I thought it should be my go…

A VISION FOR ENGLISH CRICKET

Less Twenty20 cricket – yes, I know the cricketing world has been bitten by the 20/20 bug but we already have the IPL, Champions League, Champions Trophy and not to mention whatever competitions going on in England next year (last count there were 32). In England, we are Olympic gold medallists at dragging out a cricket event until all interest has hit rock bottom. Shorter, sharper doses of this format is the way forward and with the welcome shot in the arm of overseas franchises.

 

Less 40-over cricket – or at the very least, think of a better format for a competition that chucking all the bloody counties into two pots and then having semis and finals. It harks back to those dreary days of countless meaningless games between sides with bugger all to play for.

 

Less 50-over cricket – You might have detected a theme by now – but who on earth wants to watch five or heaven help us all, seven one day internationals between the same teams. If we have to play this much cricket each summer (and let’s face it, it’s not making England any better at the sodding format) then at least make a mini-tournament or invite over Deccan Chargers or Trinidad & Tobago to brighten things up.

 

Don’t start county cricket until May - I am firmly in the camp who loves to chalk off the days until the new season but I’m never one of the die-hard few who will sit in driving rain in plummeting temperatures to watch Somerset and Devon each score 400 at Taunton in front of two ducks and a lost tourist.

 

Shake up the points system in County cricket - No one wants to lose a game of cricket but at the end of the day, it happens to the best of us so better to go out in a blaze of glory. Encourage sides to press for that win, draws are not uncommon especially in a country where whole counties can be under water for days (just ask Worcestershire) but there has to be bugger all incentive to just let games drift.

 

Take Test cricket off Sky - Whilst resisting for years, I have succumbed reluctantly to the beast that is Sky. Apart from the fact that it would save me £35 a month, and despite Sky’s subscribers now up at 9.5m, I cannot believe it does the game any good to be watched by a fraction of the population.

And there you have it, hardly revolutionary but will they listen, will they b*%#$!!

And yes, he’s from Middlesex before you ask. And a batsman to boot. Though we shouldn’t hold either against him, indeed we’ve done rather well from Middlesex players down the years and Langer’s departure meant we could do with a number 3 which I believe is the club’s thinking. Compton had an excellent 2009 and is likely to slot right in at or near the top of the order in 2010. he’s a great talent, superb fielder and imagine will further enhance our one-day side nicely. The view from Middx fans certainly seems to be one of appreciation for Compton’s weight of runs and hope he does well at Somerset which is magnanimous seeing as we’ve nicked arguably their two best players.

The expectation is that Wes Durston who seemed to me the best batsman out in India recently in his fleeting performances for the Sabres (curiously labelled Somerset CCC on Eurosport – is there a rebrand we’re unaware of??) is to be offered a new deal so I think the batting is well sown up for 2010.

An express bowler to open alongside Charl Willoughby and Somerset will be in fine nick for trophies next term. And while I remember, a fine gesture for the club to support a charity – Children’s Hospice South West – as the beneficiary for 2010 with club coffers seemingly well packed after India and decent final placings in county cricket.