Farewell Air McNair

Every now and then you appreciate that there are significantly worse things in life than Northamptonshire coming unstuck when it appears to matters most.

Two days ago I went to the funeral of a friend whose big ambition for 2009 was to live long enough to see Australia at Wantage Road.

Tonight I came home to discover that Steve McNair had been shot dead.

McNair may not exactly have been a plaster saint but outside of the teams I have followed, supported and suffered with, he is perhaps the athlete who has given me the most pleasure to watch.

Helluva player.

England Expects

Nice to see that David Willey has been rewarded for his impressive performances with a call up to the England Under-19 team to face Bangladesh.

Willey's selection clearly reflects well on both the player and the county's academy, although that will presumably be overlooked by certain critics who persist in regarding Wantage Road as some sort of elite Kolpak bastion.

Despite Willey's selection it's worth asking a pertinent question here.

Why has he only been selected for the Second Test?

Leicestershire's James Taylor and Josh Cobb have also been selected for the first test only, the implication being that they will return to Leicester for their Championship match with Middlesex while Willey replaces one of them, a situation that doesn't exactly seem to be in anyone's best interests.

If the answer is to allow him to place against Derbyshire in the County Championship during the First Test before joining up with England ahead of the Second, you have to wonder what the point is.

Northants are scheduled to face Derbyshire from July 7-10 and the second game with Bangladesh gets underway on July 12. Consequently Willey would only have 24 hours to prepare for the game.

With the Bangladesh game scheduled to last until July 15, Willey would then have just a further 24 hours to recover ahead of the opening Pro 40 game at Derby.

Clearly the crux is a lack of preparation and recovery time.

Therefore it will be interesting to see if Willey is selected to face Derbyshire in the Championship or if David Capel feels it would be unrealistic to expect his young star to cram so much cricket into such a short period of time.

The bottom line is would a refreshed Willey learn more from continuing his cricketing education in a match against first class opposition, or will he get more out of turning up for international duty?

Willey has already done enough to suggest he belongs in first class cricket - which is frankly more than you can say for Bangladesh at the highest level.

Crazy Hair

The Pittsburgh Steelers gave the sporting world the Terrible Towel, an intensely aggravating yellow towel to be waved by the team's fans to inspire their players to greater glories.

The Green Bay Packers gave the sporting world Cheddar Heads, chunks of cheddar-shaped foam in hat form designed to honour Wisconsin's heritage as the dairy state and salute the Packers.

In 2009 the Northamptonshire Steelbacks gave the sporting world Crazy Hair.

I'm not quite sure who came up with the idea - or whether they'd just got back from mulling the idea over in the bars and cafes of Amsterdam - but Crazy Hair was on sale at all outlets around the County Ground during the Twenty/20 qualifying rounds.

The design was loosely based around a garish maroon headband festooned with the Steelback logo and topped off shockingly with bright hair, that was less Northamptonshire gold and more Tweety Pie yellow.

I have to admit that I didn't actually see anyone wearing Crazy Hair at any stage (although to be honest the entire crowd could have been wearing it during the Gloustershire match and I wouldn't have noticed it on account of my head being buried in my hands for most of the game) but for anyone curious as to what CrazyHair looks like, the illustration should give you a rough idea.

Kinda groovy, huh?

The Fugitive

Last year's decision to release Lance Klusener (a move that has been largely vindicated by the emergence of David Willey and greater opportunities for the likes of Alex Wakely and Mark Nelson) demonstrated that David Capel is not afraid to make difficult calls when it comes to culling his playing staff.

Klusener's popularity with the fans combined with his continued productivity with the bat meant that it would have been all too easy for the County to re-up him and retain his services for another season.

However, Capel decided to let Klusener go (it's worth noting that for all his success with the bat in his final two seasons with the Steelbacks, none of the other 17 counties were hammering a path to his door to offer a lucrative new deal) so it's clear the Northamptonshire coach isn't particularly sentimental.

Which is not necessarily good news for Steven Crook.

Crook's contract is up at the end of the season and he's running out of opportunities to convince the powers at Wantage Road that he's worthy of a new deal. He may have more prospect of signing a record deal with his band, The Fugitives, than landing a new contract with Northamptonshire.

It's fair to say that Crook has not enjoyed a great deal of good fortune since making the switch from Old Trafford at the back end of 2005.

After announcing himself in impressive style with the bat, he has been plagued by a succession of injuries that have hampered his development. A stress fracture led to extensive work on remodelling his bowling action and he has also had problems with other injuries. A typical case in point came this year against Essex when he took his first five-wicket haul in the Championship, only to miss subsequent games with a side strain.

There's no doubting Crook's enthusiasm in the field and his commitment to the cause - he's one of the club's more talented fielders - but the fact remains that his bowling has not developed as might have been hoped.

His batting has also disappointed at times (in fairness he was routinely left high and dry during this year's Friends Provident Trophy when the Steelbacks reacted to the concept of powerplays with all the coherence of an Eskimo speaking Swahili) and he has not touched the heights he showed during his first weeks at the club when he demonstrated pretensions of being a genuine all-rounder.

The bottom line is that Crook is not part of Northamptonshire's best Championship line-up. Furthermore, with Andrew Hall and Johan van der Wath contracted until the end of 2010 and David Lucas and the ever-improving David Wigley playing increasingly prominent roles (to say nothing of Bud Bailey, Lee Dagget, Ryan Cummins and Jack Brooks), Crook's prospects of a Championship recall appear slim.

There certainly would appear to be little point in retaining him next season with a view to him really making a splash in 2011 after Hall and van der Wath have moved on.

Crook may be the best batsman among the English bowlers but the rise of Wakely, Nelson and Willey means there is little chance of his ability with the bat earning him the nod ahead of other more reliable bowlers.

Consequently he looks increasingly cast in the role of one day specialist.

However, his performances with the ball have rarely been good enough (notwithstanding the 4-20 burst he unleashed on Sussex under the lights at Wantage Road when he bowled with as much venom, speed and skill as any bowler of recent vintage to give Northants hope that they had discovered their own version of Darren Gough). His stats make grim reading - 21 wickets in 30 List A matches at an average of over 50 with an economy rate above 6.00.

Additionally, for all his undoubted ability with the bat, he only averages around 15 and while that relatively low figure has been influenced by his willingness to sacrifice his wicket for the cause by flailing away at the death, there comes a point where you have to consider looking elsewhere.

His fairly iffy performances in the Twenty/20 group stages, culminating in a disastrous six balls against Gloucestershire, suggest that Crook is living on borrowed time.

The fact that Capel axed him from the team in the aftermath of the defeat to the Gladiators suggests he may have seen enough and certainly does not indicate that Crook will be in the forefront of the coach's thoughts when he comes to finalising the team to take on Hampshire in the quarter-final.

Conversely, Crook is likely to be front and centre in Capel's mind when he picks the team to take on Australia at Wantage Road on July 24. As things stand, Crook may have little more than those three days against the nation of his birth to salvage his career at Wantage Road.

Crook deserves a little luck - he certainly deserves a day in the sun against the Australians - but if he is unable to provide Capel with a compelling case to retain his services after this season, The Fugitives' front man may be left to deliver his own coronach for his Steelbacks career.

Something To Savour

All in all I think it's fair to say that the group stages of the Twenty/20 went rather nicely.
Securing a home quarter-final against Hampshire was a fitting reward for some excellent performances from David Capel's team.

At one stage the Steelbacks did threaten to melt down in dire fashion and briefly flirted with the worst case scenario of contriving to come fourth in what had once seemed to be a two-horse race, a scenario which would have involved missing out on the top flight of the new P20 competition next summer.

Aside from the financial benefits that accrued as a result of clinching a home quarter-final and securing a spot in the P20 top flight (shames about those test match venues, Lord's, Trent Bridge, The Oval, Headingly and the Swalec Stadium missing out on account of Middlesex, Notts, Surrey, Yorkshire and Glamorgan not being up to the task), there were a wide range of excellent performances.

Ian Harvey led the way and established himself as arguably the most inspired signing since Anil Kumble. Harvey may have looked human against Glamorgan but he is one of the best players ever to play Twenty/20 and his presence seemed to inspire both fans and players.

Nicky Boje produced a couple of outstanding displays with the ball, Johan van der Wath kept smashing the ball out of the park at opportune moments, Andrew hall proved as hard to score off as ever (the odd blip against Somerset notwithstanding) while David Willey, Riki Wessels and Alex Wakely all shone.

Willey's bowling was a revelation while Wakely's batting continued to blossom with fine knocks against Gloucestershire and Worcestershire.

Niall O'Brien showed enough in three games for the Steelbacks and five with the Irish national side during the World Cup that he has developed into an extremely dangerous hitter at the top of the order and some of his displays behind the stumps for Ireland were superb. He might not be the most important member of the squad but Northants' chances of beating Hampshire will improve if he regains fitness by the end of the month.

The fielding was generally of a very high standard while a couple of pennies appeared to drop in the closing games, namely that there is a role for Stephen Peters in this form of the game and that having too many bowling options is a recipe for disaster.

Judging by their efforts so far, the Steelbacks don't need more than six bowlers for the showdown with Hampshire and should be able to get by with Harvey, van der Wath, Hall, Willey, Boje and Monty Panesar (if available). Panesar may have contrived not to take a wicket in 20 overs but he conceded just 133 runs in the competition and bowled better than he was given credit for. He's certainly a more viable and economic option than David Lucas, Lee Dagget and Steve Crook for the sixth bowler's spot, especially with the game at Wantage Road likely to feature a pitch that will take some turn.

There are still some areas that the Steelbacks need to work on but for the moment they can enjoy a well-earned rest and look forward to July 29.

Bring on the Hawks.

Who'll Stop The Rain

Hmmmm...
Try and guess who's going to lose the toss and cop the worst of the conditions in Cardiff this evening.
Let's consider the evidence.
Northants face a must-win game.
The game will be played under floodlights.

The forecast is not good.

Any suggestions?

Who's Next?

This is getting ridiculous.
Wantage Road is starting to bear less resemblance to a cricket ground than to a bad day at the 4077th MASH.

The news that Niall O'Brien could be out for up to six weeks with damaged ankle ligamens is the latest in a long line of injuries and illnesses apparently designed to strike down Northamptonshire's season.

In addition to losing David Sales for the year with his injured knee, O'Brien has now gone on the sick list, hobbling in the footsteps of Johan van der Wath (knee), Stephen Peters (finger), Monty Panesar (finger), Steve Crook (side), Ryan Cummins (back), Riki Wessels (pneumonia) and Nicky Boje (hamstring).

The injuries keep coming and we're not even at the end of June.

There is a limit to the number of injury blows that any squad can take and bearing in mind that David Capel has one of the smallest and least experienced outfits at his disposal, the Northamptonshire coach deserves credit for making the most of his ever-dwindling resources.

One or two of those who have not yet succumbed to injury look out on their feet - Rob White looks as if he could do with a week on the beach to recharge his batteries and David Willey could also do with a breather after making such an impressive early impact - and the 10 days off after the game against Worcestershire on Sunday could not be coming at a better time.

Of course, if the Steelbacks cannot plug the gaps in the sinking ship rapidly there might not be much left to play for come July. Crucially, the flesh may be knackered but the spirit still seems strong and while we have Harvey we have hope

Therefore, the question is can you win one out of three.

Can you?