Don’t laugh. We’ll admit it is a bit counter-intuitive, but we’re intrigued.

Rikki Clarke was picked for England at a young age and while he didn’t disgrace himself, his bowling clearly wasn’t international standard, so he’s something of a figure of fun. Last year, both his batting and bowling aspired to ‘not quite international standard’ as he wallowed in underachievement at Surrey.

So, the obvious solution was for Rikki Clarke to go and take the Derbyshire captaincy. Is it change just for the sake of it? Who knows? Let’s watch and find out.

And if nothing does happen, let’s quietly edit the website that there’s no mention of Rikki Clarke being One To Watch and pretend that none of this happened.

Other players to watch in 2008.

Tags: Darrell Hair, Rikki Clarke, county cricket, ones to watch by King Cricket
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Maybe it’s not a miracle, but you don’t spurn headlines like that, even if they are more obvious than the correlation between mobile phone advertising and incidences of depression.

Darrell Hair has been restored to the Elite Panel of ICC Umpires. It sounds like he’s just going to see out his contract which ends in 2009. It still seems a bit weird though. Despite the ‘unanimous decision’ he’s clearly not wanted by the ICC - or anyone else really.

Even Mrs Hair doesn’t want him hanging round the house all day with his hangdog expression. It’s thought that Mrs Hair may in fact have brokered this unlikely deal. A source close to the Hairs said yesterday: “Mrs Hair’s sick of his moping. One of their koi carp hanged itself last week, it got so affected by his tangible aura of despair.”

Tags: Darrell Hair by King Cricket
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