Liam Plunkett took 3-16 as Durham FINALLY made it into the Twenty20 Cup semi finals.
With three superlative overs behind him, Plunkett’s surely in line for a Test recall. That’s a whole opening spell for England these days.
It’s okay - it’s a good line. It’s the line you have to cross to get written about on King Cricket.
Tim Bresnan has been having one of those quietly productive seasons in which our Ones To Watch seem to specialise. Despite having taken more wickets than anyone else in division one so far this season - 29 at an average of 23.34 - his 5-94 against Durham yesterday was remarkably his first five-wicket haul.
Complementing his quietly productive bowling has been some quietly productive batting: 295 runs at an average of 49.16 with two fifties and no hundreds.
Liam Plunkett is making his first County Championship appearance of the season in the same match after playing a few Twenty20 games over the last few weeks. Plunkett is having a Bresnanian match himself. He took 3-70 and hit 68 not out, batting at nine.
Only his angelic side and his demonic side are BOTH cyclopic yellow bears.
“Go and buy some honey, Liam.”
“Don’t listen to him! Go and steal some honey.”
We think Liam Plunkett’s still worth watching. He’s 23 this week. It’s a little bit early to be discarding him.
Ordinarily a promising young English seam bowler could expect to spend the winter with what was the England A team and is now the England Lions. Plunkett did so, but before Christmas he did a little bit extra. He signed up to play for The Dolphins in South Africa. Assuming no bestial confusion arises in poor Plunkett’s mind, we think this was a great move.
Playing in South Africa was the making of Matthew Hoggard, who spent a couple of years with Free State in his youth. Hopefully it’ll have a similar effect on Plunkers. It’s not just the unfamiliar conditions, it’s the independence and the expectation that you have to prove your worth as an overseas signing. Plunkett took 12 wickets at 30.75, which is nowt special, but the experience might mean more than that.
Liam Plunkett’s had a bit of a go at international cricket and he appears to have liked it. He’s going out of his way to improve himself as a cricketer and that can never be bad, particularly when it’s allied to talent - which Plunkett does have. You don’t get picked for England at 20 without being half decent.