Changes & Strange Opportunities

One - Western Australian fast bowler Michael Hogan has announced he will quit Australian cricket after his contract with WA expires at the end of the 2012/13 season. The most consistent bowler in the Sheffield Shield last season, he played in all ten games for WA, capturing 46 wickets at 23 and was second in aggregate behind Tasmanian Jackson Bird. Plucked from first grade cricket in Newcastle three seasons ago and offered a contract in the West, Hogan has been ignored by the Australian selectors at a time when fast bowlers have rotated in and out of the national side with rapidity. Turning 31 tomorrow might have something to do with selection ignorance, despite the seeming support of national coach, Mickey Arthur (see quotes) who saw his wares as the WA coach. Given the the brittle nature of the fast bowling stocks, perhaps a man who has played 27 of the last 30 first class matches WA has had scheduled in the last three seasons and who taken 100 wickets to boot, might get a look in whilst the youngsters succumb to sore feet and dogey backs.

He starts a contract with Glamorgan now which will become full time next English season as he waves goodbye to Australia on his British passport.

 Two - the appointment of Geoffrey Boycott to be the new Chairman at Yorkshire marks a full circle for the irascible former England player who's playing record was impressive. Boycs scored more first class hundreds (151) than all Englishmen bar Hobbs, Hendren, Hammond and Mead and the same number as that other handy Yorkshireman, Herbert Sutcliffe, but as a player, captain and commentator, he has had a habit of being in the thick of controversy. He captained his beloved Yorkshire for eight years during the seventies, after Brian Close was sacked with Boycott receiving much of the blame. Earlier, he had battled injury during the late 1960's and missed games for England before returning an average of 95 in the boring 1970/71 tour of Australia - a tour which blooded Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh. He placed himself in Test exile for three years during the 1970's, returning in 1977 against Australia at home and making his hundredth first class hundred on his home ground at Leeds as England won by an innings. England won every time Boycott scored a century. His contract with Yorkshire was saved in 1984 by his friend and captain David Bairstow but former players Brian Close and Ray Illingworth eventually had him removed in late 1986. Despite being offered contracts elsewhere, Boycott never played first class cricket again.

Now, fifty years after his debut with Yorkshire and after a troubled life which has included a suspended sentence for assaulting his girlfriend in 1998, a battle with throat cancer in 2002 and ongoing bouts of depression, he returns as the Chairman, stating with conviction that he wants to win the County Championship next season in Yorkshire's 150th year. Yorkshire, relegated for the first time at the end of the 2011 season, sit in second place in Division Two and appear likely to bounce back to Division One in 2013 and have a shot at Boycott's stated aim.

It would be a grand return for a man who coveted the leadership of England but he has probably already marked his greatest achievement in the mentoring and friendship he provided for Jonny Bairstow after the death by suicide of his father when young Jonny was still in single figures. Such deeds are the true mark of a man.

Three - on the Test front, more woes for a luckless West Indies on their tour of England. Already two down, they have been competitive for much of the series against England but one disastrous session a Test  has cost them both matches. Their batting has been full of promise but short on delivery and except for Shiv Chanderpaul and Marlon Samuels, no one in the batting line up can be relied upon. Injuries have hit them hard with Shannon Gabriel sent home after a promising start at Lords, Fidel Edwards ruled out for Trent Bridge, Kirk Edwards ruled out during Trent Bridge and now Kemar Roach heading home with shin splint problems. Its the last straw for captain Darren Sammy, who stepped up with his first Test hundred in the second Test but with Roach out and Shane Shillingford a dud at Trent Bridge, unless English batsmen collapse with exhaustion, he may not be able to buy a wicket at Birmingham. News that Sunil Narine is being rushed to England will be a fillip for Sammy and perhaps indigestion for Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen, who had tried to dine out on Saeed Ajmal in January and are still burping. It's a sign of the times that Narine will find time to make his Test debut now he has completed his IPL commitments. Remember when it was asserted such things could never happen?

Meanwhile, England will look to rest one or possibly two of their bowlers in preparation for the visiting South Africans. I wonder how Harold Larwood would have responded to the concept of rest for his blood filled boots in 1932/33 or Eddie Paynter, who came from hospital, batted with a fever and retuned to hospital after saving England in the Brisbane Test of the same tour? They were the days when men were men and Jardine was a bastard. The austere one himself, Douglas Jardine, would be playing "three monkeys" in his grave.