The Boys are Back

By Grockle
April 11 2003

A run out at Southampton and the first glimpse of the summer of our West Indian Somersetian and England's top slow bowling allrounder. But where is Matt Bulbeck and can he bowl?

A two day game which allowwed an innings apiece and a run out for a squad of 13. Mostly its a bit of a nothing game and there are not a lot of indications to come from it in terms of form or desire to win. But it does allow players to turn their arms over and get their eyes in.

Nixon McLean graced a Somerset shirt for the first time and although he didn't bowl and produced 16 off 15 balls, he is here and that solves one problem.

Jamie Cox, Andy Caddick (who is being rested it seems) and Marcus Trescothick (who should be available for early games, now that he's not quite the ECB flavour of the month he was this time last season)have still not raised bat or thrown ball in anger but that may come this week-end against the mighty Loughborough University side!!

Ian Blackwell was on show however and it will be good to see how much his bowling has come on over the winter. He hit 69 off 81 in this game and bowled 9 overs, 5 maidens and took 2 for 18 - which is not a bad start. It will be good to watch the friendly rivalry between him and Dutchy, who took the same number of wickets for the same number of runs but with his spread over more overs. James Bryant hhit another solid score of 78 and Laraman, Francis and Jones all got among the wickets (wqith 2 each). It was good to see Richard J bowling 15 overs.

The worry is still that we have yet to see Matt Bulbeck bowl a ball in anger. He is back and we still have the week-end but as most of you lot believe that he will take the last seamer spot behind Caddick, McLean and Johnson it is a bit of a worry. I'm not so sure he will oust Jonah if he can produce spells of 10/6/14/2 in the real games but the left hand/right hand variation would be very useful, especially on some of the battiing pitches we may face this year.

Still, early days. Let's see what Saturday brings. See you down there.