Saturday Spotlight: Injuries to blame for a forgettable season

DURHAM’S hopes of becoming the first team since Yorkshire in 1968 to complete a hattrick of county championship titles were stymied at the outset by injuries and their season simply never got going.

They finished fifth out of nine in division one, fifth out of seven in their group in the one-day league and eighth out of nine in the northern group of the Twenty 20 Cup.

If the continuing decline in one-day form since that wonderful day when Durham won their first silverware in the 2007 Friends Provident Trophy is mirrored in the championship, Durham will have problems.

It is impossible to believe, however, that they can again suffer so badly from injuries, although it will be interesting to see how Steve Harmison approaches the task of getting fit for next season.

Having to accept that his England career was over clearly lowered his incentive, and his desire to play for Durham appears to be diluted when his brother, Ben, is not involved. But he has three years left on his county contract and still has a huge amount to offer, if he so wishes.

Graham Onions will hopefully be fit by June following his back operation and if Mark Davies could finally have an injury-free run Durham might again have the strongest attack in the country.

Anyone suggesting at the start of the 2010 season that Mitch Claydon would be the joint leading wicket-taker among the seamers would have been considered at least one stump short of a full set.

Yet 35 championship wickets were enough to place him alongside Liam Plunkett at the top of the pile, even though he was left out of the final match to give West Indian triallist Ruel Brathwaite a chance.

Claydon played in 12 out of 16 championship games, while Plunkett played in 14 but never found his best form with bat or ball.

Harmison, Onions, Davies and Callum Thorp totalled 18 appearances between them and, of the rest, Will Gidman and Luke Evans were rarely fit and Neil Killeen was ignored. He announced his retirement at the end of the season and after four years at Durham without a championship appearance, Gidman decided to join Gloucestershire.

In total, 15 members of the full-time staff were injured at some stage and Durham might wonder why Somerset did so much better with barely half as many seamers on their staff.

Charl Willougby, Alfonso Thomas and Peter Trego missed only one game between them and Ben Phillips missed five in early season through non-selection.

It might be significant that Somerset’s coach, Andy Hurry, is a former Royal Marines fitness instructor who played cricket as an amateur for Taunton. It was not a regime which suited Ian Blackwell.

Phil Mustard was the only player who was ever present, although Michael Di Venuto and Dale Benkenstein played in all the championship games, with the latter barely able to walk by the end of the season.

Bravely defying two injuries for much of the campaign, his form suffered and although Durham might like him to resume the captaincy, they have to accept that, at 36, his decline is unlikely to be reversed.

The same applies to Di Venuto. His average was well down on previous years, and what is most worrying for Durham is that, although the Tasmanian reached 1,000 championship runs for the season in the final match, no other batsman topped 800.

Ben Stokes would have done so had he not missed the last three games through a broken foot.

He topped the averages with 760 runs at 46.25, with his two centuries in May providing the season’s highlights and confirming him as an England player in the making.

Durham rightly cite the success of Stokes and Scott Borthwick, who became a regular in the side, as evidence of progress. But what of the rest?

Mark Stoneman showed some encouraging signs but still failed to average 30 after regaining the opening spot from Kyle Coetzer, who followed his century against Nottinghamshire at the end of last season with an innings of 170 against the MCC in Abu Dhabi in this year’s curtainraiser.

Durham won that match so comfortably they seemed set to continue their allconquering ways of 2009, but the trip did them no favours.

Coetzer failed to maintain his form, Will Smith couldn’t make any runs at No 3 and with opponents putting together much bigger stands than in 2009 things rapidly fell apart.

After stressing how hard he had worked to get fit for his first season with Durham, Blackwell was back in the sort of shape which persuaded Somerset to leave him out of their one-day team.

His one-day form for Durham wasn’t great, but his natural talent allowed him to be the most valuable member of the four-day side in terms of runs and wickets. In a season of five wins and three defeats, he was twice a match-winner, at home to Hampshire and away to Lancashire.

Blackwell was carrying an ankle injury during the innings defeat at Trent Bridge and appeared reluctant to bowl. When Smith had Stokes and Ben Harmison bowling in tandem, and being thrashed to all parts, the nadir had been reached and the captain’s end was nigh.

Immediately after the first championship defeat for 23 games he told the media he was determined to fight on, yet less than 24 hours later it was announced that he had stood down by mutual consent.

This was disingenuous.

Whether or not Smith should have retained the captaincy a while longer will always be open to debate, but such a genuine, honest and thoughtful character deserved better treatment.

Attempts to keep him involved through the odd one-day appearance achieved nothing and a year after winning the title by an unprecedented 47 points, his future is clouded by uncertainty.

The captaincy remains a dilemma. Given the general dumbing down of the game through the excess of Twenty20 there was a certain logic about Durham switching from a deep-thinking public school product to a happy-golucky local lad whose bubbly approach would restore morale.

Mustard took to the task surprisingly well and, unlike Smith, it also brought the best out of his batting as he scored two championship centuries four years after his first two.

Barring a return to Benkenstein, there is no obvious alternative captain on the staff. Gordon Muchall has plenty of experience of leading the seconds but needs to concentrate on cementing his place after scoring two centuries once he had taken over Smith’s No 3 slot.

Chairman Clive Leach is insisting that there will be no overseas player next season, so Durham can’t go down that route for a captain.

The solution might eventually lie with Paul Collingwood once his Test career is over as there was some sign of bridges being repaired this season. But his Indian Premier League commitments might cloud the issue.

Collingwood showed Durham how to bowl – that is to say pretty slowly – in his two Twenty20 appearances.

But little notice seemed to be taken and the heavy financial outlay on Ross Taylor and Albie Morkel was wasted.

Not that the two overseas men were failures as they were the top two in the batting averages with the best strike rates. But after building momentum by twice breaking their own batting records, first at Edgbaston then at home to Leicestershire, followed by an easy home win against Yorkshire, Durham were derailed by Alex Hales’ controversial catch.

They lost that match to Nottinghamshire by seven runs when they would otherwise probably have won it to go joint top with their visitors. Obviously deflated, they managed only one more win.

The notable feature of the CB 40 campaign was that Durham persevered with Ben Harmison at No 3, presumably in an attempt to keep him happy. He continued the previous season’s habit of making 30 or 40 before getting out when he needed to accelerate, and after two early wins Durham rarely scored quickly enough. Coetzer was a successful No 3 in the Friends Provident-winning team three years ago, but he featured only twice in the CB 40, batting at number seven.

Harmison junior put in some notable performances when Stokes’ broken foot allowed him to play in the last three championship games.

They may have helped to raise his self-belief but otherwise counted for little as the team continued to follow good performances with bad, notably against relegated Essex at Chelmsford.

Even when they showed the spirit to hold out for a draw in the final match at home to Somerset, the fact that their resolve was not match by lilylivered Lancashire handed the title to undeserving Nottinghamshire. Somerset would have been more popular champions, so it was a dispiriting end to an unsatisfactory season, ruined by Twenty20's domination of midsummer.

Skipper Gale blows hot but best is still to come

SO near, yet so far. So near to two trophies, yet how far have Andrew Gale’s side come over the last six months? Written off from the silverware trail by many pundits, even installed as the bookmakers’ favourites for relegation in the County Championship.

But Gale has moulded a side full of character, a side willing to play attacking and adventurous cricket, and one that has been a pleasure to watch in all forms of the game this summer.

But don’t underestimate the role played in the county’s progression by director of professional cricket, Martyn Moxon.

Here is a man who confronted an angry spectator last season, showing signs of a coach under pressure as his troops battled against relegation.

But there has been none of that this season, sometimes allowing assistant coach Craig White and his captain to look after the first team while he has been watching the club’s second and academy sides.

Gale has led from the front brilliantly. There is absolutely no doubt that this is his team.

The encouraging signs were there right from the off, with numerous bowling changes providing immediate success in the opening-week win against Warwickshire at Edgbaston. A man with the Midas touch? Not yet, but surely in the future.

no-nonsense lad from Dewsbury, Gale also demonstrated the softer side to his character when he often put an arm around the explosive West Indian fast bowler Tino Best to get the best out of him.

Gale was not the club’s leading run-scorer by any stretch, but that was more down to the fabulous form of others.

Jacques Rudolph was again imperious, scoring 1,375 runs in his most successful Championship season for the county, as well as amassing 861 from 13 Clydesdale Bank 40 matches at an average of 95.66

He admitted that it would have been the “perfect” campaign had he done better in Twenty20.

Adam Lyth, given a new role as the opener in Championship cricket, topped the run charts with 1,509 to have many suggesting he was an outsider for a place in the Ashes squad.

Anthony McGrath also scored over 1,000 runs in the competition, a triumph for the experienced right-hander after giving up the captaincy last winter.

Jonny Bairstow was Yorkshire’s ice man, especially in four-day cricket.

Warwickshire must be sick of the sight of him after he scored crucial half-centuries to tip the balance in run chases at both Edgbaston and Headingley. But then again, they had the last laugh in the CB40 semi-final.

Bairstow also demonstrated his power at various stages in both forms of limited-overs cricket.

South African legend Herschelle Gibbs said that the youngster hits the ball further than anyone he has seen, while Rudolph has tipped him to play for England within three years.

Bairstow began the season with the gloves in Championship cricket, but ended it playing as a batsman only because Gerard Brophy forced his way back into the side with the help of the odd international call up or injury here and there.

Adil Rashid was Yorkshire’s best bowler in all forms, finishing as the leading spinner in division one with 57 scalps at an average of 31.29. He also took 26 Twenty20 wickets and 12 in the 40-over competition.

Rashid benefited from a season away from the pressure which surrounds England, but he, too, could have gone to Australia.

There were useful contributions here and there from England pair Ajmal Shahzad and Tim Bresnan, who have played a part in all forms of international cricket in the calendar year of 2010.

Their biggest part could still be to come in Australia. Steve Patterson was excellent in his breakthrough year, proving to be Mr Reliable. He struggled a little in Twenty20, but took four wickets in a thumping of Lancashire at Headingley

Oliver Hannon Dalby, the towering 21-year-old fast bowler, started the season with a ringing endorsement from a local in Barbados: “Hey, listen. This man will play for England. He like Curtly,” he said.

He ended it with 34 Championship scalps, including two five-wicket hauls in the first two matches, against Warwickshire and Somerset.

It was not through a lack of form that he did not play oneday cricket, it was just that Gale and Moxon largely wanted him fresh for the Championship.

Moin Ashraf, 18, also proved in the last couple of matches that the club have an embarrassment of riches in the pace department, taking five wickets against Kent.

Rich Pyrah should also not be forgotten for some crucial displays in the one-dayers, recovering well from the nightmare of conceding 12 off one ball in a Twenty20 match at Northamptonshire.

There were disappointing years for David Wainwright and Joe Sayers, who both struggled with injury and a lack of form.

Azeem Rafiq, however, proved to be a bit of twit with a rant at England Under-19 manager John Abrahams.

Having seen him bowl like a dream against Lancashire at Old Trafford in a game Yorkshire nearly won, that was a regrettable incident.

Yorkshire could see the return of Ryan Sidebottom this winter, potentially as a replacement for an overseas signing. And, safe in the knowledge that this young team will get better, it is fair to say that next April can’t come soon enough.