Tuesday, May 07, 2002
Tuesday, May 07, 2002 |
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Cricket
By Ted Corbett
He was also allowed to drop out of the Essex side — as part of the much-debated policy of ensuring Test players have the maximum rest — which led to last week's practice session at its nets and the sharply rising ball which broke his arm. The first hints coming from Essex suggested that he might have the plaster removed in four weeks which would make him available for the third Test against Sri Lanka beginning on June 13; only five weeks away. That assumes that he can go back to the nets immediately his cast comes off, take up a county place soon after and quickly hit the form which demands a Test place. It is possible but it is more likely that he will be absent until the one-day international series against India and Sri Lanka in late June. Why he was not wearing an armguard at a net session has still to be explained but Graham Gooch, the Essex coach, says the accident was "just bad luck.'' Now the return of Stewart, aged 39 but still in fine form behind the stumps and after hitting two scores just short of a century in Surrey's early matches, seems certain. Stewart is usually conventionally modest about his performances but he claimed "there is no doubt I am batting well at the moment although getting to 100 is a problem'' after making 99 and 96 in his first two championship matches. His selection is a backward step but one forced on the selectors who think Foster a better proposition for the next few years. There appears to be no alternative to Stewart. Warren Hegg, who went to New Zealand as Foster's deputy, must wonder if the groundsman has a better chance of selection and shrugs his shoulders philosophically. "I have grown used to the idea that I will never gain a regular Test place,'' he says as he concentrates on the captaincy of Lancashire.Other keepers around the country — like Chris Read of Nottinghamshire and Paul Nixon of Kent — have, according to one man close to the selection process, gone backwards. There are plenty of other problems to throw the next selection committee meeting into confusion despite the fact that only 11 men have contracts which ought to make the choice for the opening game of the series against Sri Lanka — at Lord's on May 16 — a formality. Darren Gough continues to sit out Yorkshire matches with a knee which swells as soon as he attempts to bowl flat out and the absence of the resting players means there is no indication of their form. This policy — seemingly applied across the board without regard to the amount of cricket played in the recent drawn series in New Zealand — means that of the top five batsmen only Mark Butcher, in his usual solid and largely undemonstrative way has made runs while Michael Vaughan, who produced few runs in New Zealand has had a single innings in the Benson and Hedges preliminary rounds so far. It is more likely that fringe players like Craig White, who has made two big scores in the Benson and Hedges games, and Mark Ramprakash, who has looked just as elegant in Surrey's early matches, will force their way in, although the return of Stewart must lead to a shake-up in the batting order.
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