Thursday 13 January 2011

Surrey sign Shaun Tait for Twenty20s

News emerges that Surrey have pulled off something of a coup in signing the man labelled as the 'World's Fastest Bowler', Shaun Tait, for this year's Twenty20 Cup. Its no secret that the fast bowling ranks were looking a bit thin with the prospect of Chris Tremlett being unavailable for large chunks of the season and the remainder of our quicks a little light on experience, so it is to my mind a very good and undeniably very exciting signing. 

He can be wayward, and his injury record does not make for pretty reading but when he gets it on the money he is a fearsome prospect. Should he and Tremlett ever take the field together it would make a formidable opening pair, extreme pace from a slingy action from one end and awkward bounce from the other. Even if they don't, Dernbach is a fine bowler, Jordan is finally coming back from injury and if Meaker can kick on that gives us plenty of options in the pace department. 

Adams' record in overseas signings isn't great, none of Rao Iftikhar, Grant Elliott, Younus Khan or Andrew Symonds performed anywhere near their best and while Ryan Harris was good his stay was all too brief. That's not to say any of that is Adams' fault, the logic behind Younus and Symonds was simple, and at the time I thought both Rao and Elliott might prove canny signings, but neither did. Shaun Tait at the Oval has all the ingredients for success, with the single injury question mark hanging over him. 

Signing big name players for the sake of it is daft, signing Shaun Tait is not. I don't doubt there will be a couple of games where a batsman gets a hold of him, but I am sure he'll take plenty of wickets. 

The limited overs side is looking potent if still a touch on the raw side, Davies (when available), Hamilton-Brown, Roy and De Bruyn carry plenty of firepower and now the bowling looks stronger. We are still missing a spinner and that should be sought as the second overseas option, throw a quality spinner into that mix and we'll be right on the money.

5 comments:

Apprehensive of Dulwich said...

Exciting yes but can't help thinking that he'll ship a fair few runs. To see him regularly sling it down at 95+ is going to be pretty cool though. He seemed to be reversing it at the end of the Aussie innings today too.

GreenJJ said...

I'll level with you, at 95mph+ I'm not sure I can tell if its reverse or conventional, its just bloody fast! He will go for runs, no question, and that will be frustrating and costly at times, but he'll also take wickets while he's doing it and you get the feeling that in there might be the odd 4-12 as well. He's a genuine out-and-out strike bowler which is what we need. And like you say, watching a bowler of that pace in the flesh is going to be excellent fun!

Chappers said...

this is interesting - we have signed Tom Maynard... I think it could be a good move for everyone
http://www.espncricinfo.com/surrey/content/current/story/497593.html

Chappers said...

On the subject of Glamorgan players - it would be interesting if we could sign Dalrymple to - I think he is would seriously help balance our team...

GreenJJ said...

Evening Chappers

Maynard is a good signing, and a plus that we didn't have to pay any compensation!

Dalrymple...I don't know, I suppose his batting would add something but I think we're chock full of middle order bats at the moment, plus he'd be pretty pricey I think.

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