Dan Worrall: a very English Australian
The Australian (with a British passport, so watch this space) conforms to the template of an English seamer. Even his curved run up is old-school, helping to get the shoulder turn and slightly round-arm action that promotes the outswing that leads to nibble after nibble after nibble.
For all three of Surrey’s hat-trick of titles, Worrall has delivered on the key brief for any side wanting to win consistently across the summer – take top order wickets, with a side order of tail demolition.
Watching him bowl is to be reminded of late-period Glenn McGrath. Each delivery is a challenge, but also part of a larger plan to move the batter across the crease, pull them forward and push them back, all in service of inducing that momentary hesitation as doubt needles the mind. If the timing is slightly off, or the bat isn’t quite there, the ball nestles in the hands of second slip yet again. In 11 Championship matches, Worrall took 52 wickets, paying only 16 runs for each for them. At 33, his injury-blighted early years are behind him, he knows his body and his craft. Worrall is at the peak of his powers.
David Bedingham: a class act
The days of the world’s very best players playing a full season of county cricket and then coming back for more, year after year, have long gone, but there are a few throwbacks to that simpler time. Durham’s elegant South African may not be in the first rank of batters waiting to stake a claim as a member of a new “Big Four” but, less than a year into his late-starting international career, he already has a century in New Zealand and an average of more than 40 in six Tests. He also has that indefinable aura of belonging at the highest level.
His level in Division One of the Championship was beyond any other batter, and by a distance to boot, his 1331 runs almost 200 ahead of the next best aggregate and in just 11 of 14 matches too. An average and strike rate of 78 also set him apart, as did 25 sixes. His numbers highlights are rounded off with a record-gobbling 279 against a moribund Lancashire side whose 11 batters had two gos at matching him collectively and fell short both times.
World class is a term of art rather than science, but if any semi-regular to regular player in our domestic first-class game has the right to that label, it’s Durham’s middle-order maestro.
Jack Leach: the heart of a lion
Little can test the moral courage of a sports star more than the combination of late-career injuries and the rise of a young talent thrillingly seizing their chance.
A 36-Test veteran, Jack Leach saw Shoaib Bashir, his 20-year-old apprentice at Somerset, take his slot for England in India last winter and then retain it through the Test summer. Worse, in an age where England look for “types” of players to select, the tall off-spinner with the bounce and the attacking line was about as far removed as could be from the left-armer, praised more for holding an end than running through a side.
Leach didn’t play at all until May and barely took a wicket until well into the second half of the season – surely the doubts were gnawing at his confidence? Once he got going, the wickets just piled up, five fivefers in the last five rounds of the Championship enough to earn a call-up for England’s upcoming tour of Pakistan, and give Somerset a sniff of that elusive first pennant.
Leach has dealt with much adversity in his extraordinary career so perhaps one should have expected such a comeback. But do not question the self-belief required. If he does make the England XI, the wave of goodwill, even from past critics such as me, will carry him to the crease for that first ball.
John Simpson: a perfect move
After 16 years at Middlesex, the temptation to coast to retirement in the familiar (and agreeable) surroundings of Lord’s must have been strong for the keeper-batter. But successful sportspeople have always been more willing to embrace discomfort than the rest of us, to push into unexplored territory, to “give it a go”. They wouldn’t have been successful without that attitude, so there’s a wedge of confirmation bias in the memory too.
Last winter, Sussex wanted some experience as ballast for their youthful talent and Paul Farbrace acquired plenty in Simpson. Soon he was asked to captain the Championship side for the first seven matches. The new kid on the block was wicketkeeper, key middle-order batter and leader, on the high wire with plenty of opportunities to slip.
after newsletter promotion
He didn’t. Playing all 14 matches, Simpson made five centuries, including a double, and four half-centuries, en route to nearly 1200 runs at 75, also bagging 44 dismissals. More importantly, he led Sussex to promotion, going up as winners of Division Two, 41 points clear of his old friends at Middlesex in third. Simpson passed the audition.
David Payne: T20 bowling at its best
In this quintet of somewhat unspectacular cricketers in their 30s, the tall left-arm pacer may be the least spectacular of them all. But when it comes to T20 cricket, the Gloucestershire bowler has a claim to have, as the young people say, “completed it”, such is his mastery of the craft.
Bowling in the powerplay and at the death, he took a tournament-leading 33 wickets in the Blast, at an average under 13 and an economy rate just a tick or two above a run a ball. Not only does that kind of performance take wickets during his four overs, but it takes a few at the other end too, because any batting side will need to go at eight or more against pretty much all the other bowlers in order to reach a competitive score.
All his technique and cunning were on display on Finals Day, turning it into something of a cakewalk for his side. In the semi-final, he dismissed the dangerous Daniel Hughes in the third over, 1 for 9 his parsimonious return from four overs. Come the final, Tom Kohler-Cadmore smacked him for two sixes in his second over, but the other three brought 3 for 12 as Payne stopped the Somerset innings’ charge before it had started with two wickets off consecutive balls.
It’s sometimes said that a combination of the interpretation of the wides and no-balls laws, power-hitting and short boundaries make T20 bowlers into little more than human bowling machines, but Payne shows that there’s plenty of room for skill, imagination and nous with ball in hand.
