By Edward Hall
March 23 2002

Glamorgan have confirmed that their overseas player for the coming season will be the Australian fast bowler Michael Kasprowicz. He will join the county after the squad return from their pre-season tour to South Africa. Kasprowicz is not the most high profile overseas signing of the winter, but Glamorgan can count themselves lucky that they have found a decent Ausssie bowler with Test experience. Kasprowicz is not a stranger to these shores. He has had spells with Essex and Leicestershire, and his Test best bowling figures were recorded at the Oval in 1997. Kasprowicz is the first overseas bowler at Glamorgan since Waqar Younis, and hopefully he will bring some of the success that Waqar did in his first year. In the past couple of years, Glamorgan have opted to recruit an overseas opening batsman, but given Steve Watkin’s retirement, the signing of a bowler was the order of the day.

In retrospect, Glamorgan may have made a sensible decision by leaving it so late to decide on their overseas player. Other counties, who confirmed their overseas player last year, are now finding that rearranged international tours may well decrease star player’s contribution for the season. The same thing would have happened to Glamorgan had they decided to resign Jimmy Maher for a second year, as he has been called up by Australia for the one-day series in Zimbabwe, which coincides with the start of the county season. By choosing Kasprowicz, the team’s bowling resources have been strengthened, and Kasprowicz will (barring injury) be available for the whole season. This could be vital in the last few county games, when most overseas players slope off to play in the ICC Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka.

We all welcome Kasprowicz to the club as a highly experienced bowler, who hopefully will be able to teach a thing or two to some of the younger bowlers, and with any luck, we’ll be singing ‘Kasper is a Welshman’ by the end of the summer.