County cricket's movers and shakers (part 3)

Posted by Tony Hutton

John Winn has already tweeted today to say that the opening of the first class cricket season may overshadow the election debate. Unfortunately all the University games against counties which started today are in the south of England, so once again we are in the dis-enfranchised minority. His views echoed those of my Lancastrian cricketing friends at our final lunch of the winter season yesterday. The feelings were unanimous that the pronouncements of Colin Graves are of much more interest than those of Cameron, Milliband, Clegg et al.

There certainly seems much more activity on the cricket hustings this week, with players coming and going at an alarming rate. I will finish my review of the remaining counties in alphabetical order, which means of course that Yorkshire will come last for once.

Starting with Middlesex, their plans have been thrown into disarray this week by the selection of Adam Voges, their captain elect for 2015, into the Australian touring team, which means he will only be available for a handful of games. So yet another signing may be imminent. Nick Compton returns from Somerset and Joe Denly has gone back to Kent.

Northants, after last year's poor performance, have had a major turnover of players. Rory Kleinveldt continues their South African connection as overseas player and will be joined by Shahid Afridi from Pakistan for some of the T20 season. Josh Cobb from Leicester and Adam Rossington from Middlesex are other new signings. They have lost a lot of experience with David Sales, Andrew Hall and James Middlebrook amongst those who have left.

Notts have signed South African bowler Vernon Philander from start of the season until early June, when Australian Ben Hilfenhaus takes over. Darren Sammy from West Indies will play in some of the T20 games. Other newcomers are the talented Will Gidman from Gloucester, Greg Smith from Leicester and possibly Brendan Taylor of Zimbabwe subject to ECB approval.

Somerset have another good collection of overseas players Abdur Rehman and Sohail Tanvir (first half of T20) from Pakistan followed by New Zealander Corey Anderson for second half of T20. The star man will no doubt be Chris Gayle for up to six T20 games, who will no doubt find the small Taunton ground to his liking.

Surrey have another big name in Kumar Sangakkara from Sri Lanka followed by Moises Henriques from Australia. They also hope to have Kevin Pietersen available for all forms of cricket. Other lesser signings are Ben Foakes from Essex, James Burke from Somerset and David Balcombe from Hampshire. Gareth Batty will be captain.

Sussex will have the reliable Australian Steve Magoffin as their overseas player with Mahela Jayawardene from Sri Lanka for the first half of T20. Other signings are bowlers Tymal Mills from Essex and Ajmal Shahzad from Notts (both Yorkshire born of course).

Warwickshire hit the headlines this week with the signing of New Zealand captain, Brendon McCullum for T20 from the end of June. Their regular overseas player will again by the very successful New Zealand spin bowler Jeetan Patel. The rest of their playing staff remains largely unchanged and their regular team and team spirit could help them challenge for the title.

Worcestershire have high hopes that spin bowler Saeed Ajmal will be available at least for the second half of the season and have Colin Munro a big hitter from New Zealand for T20. Their major import is Alex Gidman from Gloucestershire.

Yorkshire's plans seem very complicated and subject to change almost by the minute. The latest development is the loss of Younis Khan for the start of the season, but he will no be replaced by Indian Test batsman Cheteshwar Pujara, until Aaron Finch of Australia return at the end of May after the IPL finishes. Glenn Maxwell, the much heralded big hitter from Australia, is now likely to miss half the T20 games due to selection for an Australia 'A' touring side. Then Kane Williamson from New Zealand will return again but only for the last three championship matches.
Yorkshire's biggest problem will be the absence of six members of their championship winning squad both on the West Indies tour at the beginning and then the series with both New Zealand and Australia at home. The worst aspect of this is that several of their number may end up as drinks waiters and play very little cricket at all which will do them no good whatsoever.
There is plenty of talent available to take their places, as we have already seen from Leaning and Rhodes, but the biggest problem may be keeping the battery of pace bowlers fit if they are to challenge for the title again. We will soon find out with three days of cricket against Leeds/Bradford University at Headingley starting next Tuesday.