SA Footy

Its a long way from the season starting, but the signings have..with "The Wild Thing" himself

Australian fast bowler Shaun Tait will be Surrey's overseas player for this summer's Friends Provident t20 competition. Tait, 27, is widely regarded as the fastest bowler in the world. He is part of Australia's Twenty20 and one-day squads to take on England and has also been included in Australia's provisional squad for the forthcoming World Cup.

New South Wales are on the lookout for a new coach after Matthew Mott confirmed he was heading to the UK to take the reins at Glamorgan. Mott, 37, will depart at the end of the current Australian domestic season, ending his four-year stretch as head coach at New South Wales, which followed three years as an assistant under Trevor Bayliss.

Worcestershire have signed Victorian allrounder Damien Wright for the early part of the 2011 season. Wright will arrive in time for the first home Championship match against Yorkshire on 8th April.

Wright is currently in the middle of the Australian season and has taken 19 wickets at 24.10 in the Sheffield Shield. His exploits with that bat have been less impressive, with 59 runs at 11.80.

Wright played for Somerset in the early part of last season and joins a Worcestershire side that was promoted from Division Two after a successful season in 2010.

Derbyshire have signed the gifted Australia batsman Usman Khawaja for the first half of the 2011 county season.

Khawaja, 24, is still awaiting a No Objection Certificate from Cricket Australia but could be with the side from the beginning of the season through to conclusion of the Friends Provident t20 tournament. He would follow in the footsteps of fellow Australian Chris Rogers, who was with Derbyshire until the end of last season.

brod wrote:Derbyshire have signed the gifted Australia batsman Usman Khawaja for the first half of the 2011 county season.

Khawaja, 24, is still awaiting a No Objection Certificate from Cricket Australia but could be with the side from the beginning of the season through to conclusion of the Friends Provident t20 tournament. He would follow in the footsteps of fellow Australian Chris Rogers, who was with Derbyshire until the end of last season.

Hope he piles on the runs over there.

Playing as overseas players in the English county system is a good thing for blokes like Khawaja who need to keep developing their game and learn ASAP the weaknesses that a test attack will pick on.

Wonder whether they will be sent instructions on how to rebuild Tait when he falls apart.

Heading to a couple of Surrey's matches this year, day 3/4 against Middlesex at Lords and the 40 over match against Leicestershire at the Oval.

Bangladesh's captain Shakib Al Hasan has agreed terms for a return to Worcestershire during the 2011 season, for a seven-week period that will encompass the Friends Provident Twenty20 tournament. The signing is subject to receiving a No Objection Certificate from the Bangladesh Board and work permit approval.

Shakib made history in 2010 when he became the first Bangladeshi cricketer to play county cricket, and he made a fine impression during his brief stint with Worcestershire, claiming 35 wickets in eight County Championship matches, including a spell of 7 for 32 as Middlesex were bowled out for 66 at Lord's.

Martin Guptill, the New Zealand top-order batsman, has signed with Derbyshire for the English domestic season later in the year. He's their second overseas player after Usman Khawaja signed with the county earlier this month. Guptill and Khawaja will feature together in the Friends Provident t20 tournament and and Guptill will take over from the Australian batsman for the second half of the County Championship and the limited-overs tournament.

Sussex have secured seam-bowling Pakistan allrounder Rana Naved-ul-Hasan as their overseas player for the first half of the season.


Naved played for Sussex between 2005 to 2007 and - after two years with Yorkshire - for the first month of last season. He will be available until the end of June

Pakistan allrounder Yasir Arafat has switched counties, moving from Sussex to sign up as Surrey's overseas player for the entirety of the 2011 domestic season.

Arafat, a journeyman cricketer who has also enjoyed stints with Kent, Scotland and Otago - as well as with various domestic teams in Pakistan - will join up with Surrey in early April for his eighth season in the English domestic game and will be available in all three competitions for the duration of the season, complementing Australian fast bowler Shaun Tait in the Friends Provident t20.

South Africa's Twenty20 captain, Johan Botha, has joined Northamptonshire for their 2011 t20 campaign.

Wayne Parnell, the South Africa left-arm fast bowler, has signed up with Sussex as their overseas player for the second half of the 2011 English domestic season

Tim Linley has re-signed for Surrey.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/con ... ?cmp=viral

No offence to the fella, but am I the only one thinking "who?"

Media Park wrote:No offence to the fella, but am I the only one thinking "who?"

Probably not, he played cricket with a mate of mine in Yorkshire, otherwise I'd probably be saying the same thing

http://www.news-mail.com.au/story/2011/ ... h-cricket/

Murali to Gloucestershire for the T20's

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/sri-l ... re/748392/

Somerset have signed Sri Lankan spinner Ajantha Mendis for the first few weeks of the County season.

Mendis, 25, will cover for Murali Kartik while he is at the IPL and brings experience of 15 Tests and 46 ODIs to Taunton. Somerset narrowly missed on silverware last year but have bolstered their Twenty20 hopes by resigning Keiron Pollard for the second half of the summer's FPt20.

County Cricket just around the corner with MCC exhibition games against title holder Nottinghampshire in Abu Dhabi

MCC squad Chris Rogers (capt), Stephen Moore, Rahul Dravid (four-day only), Stephen Peters, Dawid Malan, Mohammad Nabi, Steven Davies, Hamid Hassan, Gary Keedy, Paul Muchall, Steve Kirby, Toby Roland-Jones, Sourav Ganguly (T20 only), Omar Ali (12th man)

Other notable inclusions for the four-day game at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium which, as in 2010, will be played under floodlights using a pink ball, are the Afghanistan pair of Hamid Hassan and Mohammad Nabi, who are former MCC Young Cricketers. Sourav Ganguly will replace Dravid for a Twenty20 event which follows the four-day match and also features Nottinghamshire, Durham and a Fly Emirates XI.

The structure of the County Championship has been preserved at the expense of Twenty20 cricket, after the ECB's Management Board agreed to reduce the Friends Provident t20 competition from 16 pool matches a season to 10 in a bid to cut back on the amount of domestic cricket being played from 2012 onwards.

The move comes in response to an unprecedented number of fixtures in 2010, in which a 151-match Twenty20 competition struggled to retain spectator interest in the face of a difficult economic climate, and competing sporting interests such as the football World Cup.

Fears that the County Championship, the bedrock of England's first-class game, would be culled to cope with the fixture overload proved unfounded. The current format will be retained, with two divisions of nine teams playing 16 matches a season.