Not Saints related but I know a fair few of us follow the Royals! Great news that Neil McKenzie has confirmed he'll be back next year. Gives a good blend of youth and experience.
That is good news - is he back for the whole season? I knew he was coming back for the 2020 competition.
Ah not many then, I thought we would had a few more leaving and a few more youngsters would come through.
Squad has shruck signifcantly. As Tom says, Tahir, Cork and Pothas have all left (Tahir will be unavailable in 2012 due to his international involvement, Cork has retired, Pothas was released). Further to this, Jones was released back to Glamorgan, Lumb has joined Notts, Howell and Ravenscroft have both left to explore other options, and McKenzie wont be coming back over to join us until June 2012. In their place, Simon Katich has been signed and David Balcombe has returned from his loan spell. If injuries strike, especially in the batting, then we are in deep trouble; both our wicket-keeping options are still very young and inexperienced; we no longer have a strike bowler in limited-overs cricket (Riazuddin will probably have to play in the t20s!!!). All that said however, I think it's great that we can now put the kids and local lads at the forefront of everything.
I've got no problems with thje Kolpak system, so long as they add real quality to your team. McKenzie would be a prime example - he has been superb for us in the past two years, including getting MOTM in the 2010 t20 final. But without Kolpak's, we wouldn't have had him (and we still wouldn't). But too many counties abuse it - and we're just as guilty of that as the next county. I mean, why did we sign De Wet last season? He did very little, and prevented the likes of Tomlinson, Kabir and Wood getting a game.
