Shaun Tait pulls out of Surrey T20 duty

Surrey's Friends Life Twenty20 campaign gets started in exactly two weeks, Gloucestershire come to the Oval first up, as they did last year (and that didn't go so well).  We'll have to make do without our big-name signing Shaun Tait who has pulled the plug at almost the very last minute because of concerns he has over being able to make it through the sixteen game programme.

To be honest I never imagined that a player as fragile as Tait would ever play every single game of our campaign, but I thought given that he'd signed up and we're now virtually on top of the start of the tournament, he'd at least be making an appearance.  His decision not to come leaves us high and dry and is yet another blow to Adams' attempts to sign high quality overseas players.  Fair enough if he thought he couldn't make it through 16 games, but why didn't he give the club a bit more notice?

I know some people doubted that Tait was a good signing but with his searing pace he'd have been too good for most county batsmen I think.  Yes he'd have gone round the park sometimes, but I thought he was a good signing.  Not so apparently.

So Adams now has to make a decision to make, does he scramble around for a replacement of possibly dubious quality or does he make do with the young but undoubtedly talented squad we have now?  I think the latter is probably better.  The last thing we want is another Grant Elliott, or Rao Ifthikar, or Younus Khan.  Unless a high quality individual is available, a Ross Taylor, Dan Vettori or Albie Morkel say, then Adams should just stick to what we've got.