Raymondo
Central Defender
For both Divisions:
Think Somerset at 5/1 are a good price for Division One, they’ve got a system that works at home and should be able to guarantee that atleast half of their fixtures will be played on pitches that should yield a positive result one way or another. They will have their important players returning for another year and they appear to have carved out a very reliable lineup of established county professionals who are highly unlikely to feature in the Test team. The one exception to that could be the discovery by Team England of James Rew.
I found it very interesting reading the BBC’s ‘ins and outs’ page to note that there really haven’t been many big name moves. In fact further to that, a lot of counties haven’t made any moves at all - particularly Surrey, Somerset and Nottinghamshire. I think Warwickshire’s acquisition of Beau Webster as overseas is a very sound piece of business but looking at their lack of reinforcement aside from that they may well struggle. I’d put Yorkshire and Sussex in the same bracket, both clubs appear to have regressed quite significantly from and in and out perspective. So too it seems have Hampshire. Generally I get the impression that counties are keeping their money for T20 names and trying to rely on youngsters for the red ball stuff.
In our division, for whatever reason Middlesex appear to have either no money to spend or no ambition (or a combination of the two). Durham and Lancashire are joint favourites and the reasons for that seem fairly obvious, but aside from having one of the best overseas men in the competition in Marcus Harris I don’t see a lot to get too excited about for Lancashire - especially if they are forced to play on as many featherbeds as they did last year. Derbyshire have been the team to have done the most business and their signing of Abbas will no doubt worry batsmen up and down the country - they’ve built fairly steadily for a few years now and I could see them challenging for the top honour. Given the contrasting levels of business between Derbyshire and Middlesex, it seems like the 6/1 for Derbyshire is worth a much better look than the 7/1 for Middlesex.
I was sceptical of our chances for most of the winter, but the nearer the season gets the more upbeat I am. Kemar Roach should be an excellent addition for this level, complimenting Raine and Potts nicely. I’d hope that Minto can begin to cement a place in the side. I’m also cautiously optimistic that we’ll see a little bit more of Stokes and Carse than we’ve had since both became England regulars. The international calendar for once is set up in such a way that there can be no genuine excuse for those lads not having some sort of involvement by way of getting their own match sharpness in before the Kiwi tour.
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Think Somerset at 5/1 are a good price for Division One, they’ve got a system that works at home and should be able to guarantee that atleast half of their fixtures will be played on pitches that should yield a positive result one way or another. They will have their important players returning for another year and they appear to have carved out a very reliable lineup of established county professionals who are highly unlikely to feature in the Test team. The one exception to that could be the discovery by Team England of James Rew.
I found it very interesting reading the BBC’s ‘ins and outs’ page to note that there really haven’t been many big name moves. In fact further to that, a lot of counties haven’t made any moves at all - particularly Surrey, Somerset and Nottinghamshire. I think Warwickshire’s acquisition of Beau Webster as overseas is a very sound piece of business but looking at their lack of reinforcement aside from that they may well struggle. I’d put Yorkshire and Sussex in the same bracket, both clubs appear to have regressed quite significantly from and in and out perspective. So too it seems have Hampshire. Generally I get the impression that counties are keeping their money for T20 names and trying to rely on youngsters for the red ball stuff.
In our division, for whatever reason Middlesex appear to have either no money to spend or no ambition (or a combination of the two). Durham and Lancashire are joint favourites and the reasons for that seem fairly obvious, but aside from having one of the best overseas men in the competition in Marcus Harris I don’t see a lot to get too excited about for Lancashire - especially if they are forced to play on as many featherbeds as they did last year. Derbyshire have been the team to have done the most business and their signing of Abbas will no doubt worry batsmen up and down the country - they’ve built fairly steadily for a few years now and I could see them challenging for the top honour. Given the contrasting levels of business between Derbyshire and Middlesex, it seems like the 6/1 for Derbyshire is worth a much better look than the 7/1 for Middlesex.
I was sceptical of our chances for most of the winter, but the nearer the season gets the more upbeat I am. Kemar Roach should be an excellent addition for this level, complimenting Raine and Potts nicely. I’d hope that Minto can begin to cement a place in the side. I’m also cautiously optimistic that we’ll see a little bit more of Stokes and Carse than we’ve had since both became England regulars. The international calendar for once is set up in such a way that there can be no genuine excuse for those lads not having some sort of involvement by way of getting their own match sharpness in before the Kiwi tour.
