< 1 minute read We decided to make Will Smith one to watch this season in August last year. That was before he was made Durham captain. Don’t know whether that will affect him. We’d been keeping an eye on him anyway, but the match that decided it was against Hampshire at Basingstoke. The
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Tim Bresnan, Yorkshire – one to watch in 2009
2 minute read Tim Bresnan’s 2007 season saw 34 wickets at an average of 32, accompanied by two hundreds and a batting average of 39. His understated 2008 season saw 45 wickets at 28 and 506 runs at 33. It’s solid stuff. He’s an asset to Yorkshire, but he’s not at the stage
Continue readingRobert Key so close to England we can almost taste it
< 1 minute read At the moment we can merely smell Rob Key being part of England, but soon – oh so soon – we’ll actually get to taste it. It’ll taste like hand-pulled elixir of life and we’ll quaff it like there’s no tomorrow. This is ironic, because the elixir of life kind
Continue readingAdil Rashid, Yorkshire – one to watch in 2009
< 1 minute read Adil Rashid, eh? Bet you’re blown away by our depth of cricketing knowledge and originality. It’s three years since we first tipped Adil Rashid and it’s the third year he’s been one to watch. It’s probably about time things started happening. By ‘things,’ we of course mean England recognition. Spectral
Continue readingSteve Davies, Worcestershire – one to watch in 2009
< 1 minute read To be honest, we haven’t got much to add to what we said about Steven Davies last year. At least this year he’ll be in Division One. This is the problem with news of earth-shattering importance – it makes writing about Worcestershire wicketkeepers less appealing. Imagine you work in the
Continue readingRob Key is about to become England captain
< 1 minute read He is, he is, he is, he is, he is, he is, he is. Rob Key is in England’s provisional 30-man squad for the World Twenty20 tournament, which, considering Andrew Strauss’s absence, puts him in prime position to take up his rightful place as captain/king of England. Most media outlets
Continue readingMark Davies, Durham – cricketer to watch in 2009
< 1 minute read A second Durham player and a second Durham seam bowler. Mark Davies is always one to watch, even if we erroneously overlooked him for the first time last year, thinking he wouldn’t get a game. We’ve a faint suspicion that Davies is the kind of bowler who’d get a lot
Continue readingJim Foat – legend among non-legends
< 1 minute read Jim Foat was a batsman for Gloucestershire in the Seventies. You probably haven’t heard of him; he wasn’t a great batsman. Jim Foat played 91 first-class matches and 129 one-day matches. First class average: 18.60. One-day average: 15.19. He didn’t take a wicket. Over 251 innings in first-class matches and
Continue readingLiam Plunkett, Durham – cricketer to watch in 2009
< 1 minute read Liam Plunkett’s partly representing Sajid Mahmood here as well (if it’s possible for one person to represent an entirely different person). It’s that whole ‘actually, those bowlers aren’t shite’ sentiment that we expressed a month or so ago. Both bowlers are synonymous with Duncan Fletcher prematurity, but that word ‘prematurity’
Continue readingCricketers to watch in 2009
2 minute read We’ve named cricketers to watch in 2006, 2007 and 2008 and we’ve not been 100 percent wrong about all of them. Of the 2006 vintage, Graeme Swann, Matt Prior and Sajid Mahmood went on to play Tests and Mark Davies is knocking around again after a couple of years of
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