By David Slater
March 7 2005

Last Monday saw the pre season forum which was held in the banqueting suite at Lord's, with Vinny Codrington chairing, assisted by John Embury and Ben Hutton. Regular chair Chris Lowe sent his appologise as he was held up somewhere warm. Given it was snowing at the time, nobody felt sorry for him!

Read on for the main points raised at the forum

John Embury's opening comments

• 12/13 players
• Jamie Dalrymple has been in Melbourne but has had a re-occurence of his shoulder injury. He will be back in 3 weeks, bowling in 5.
• Three players (Betts, Hutchinson and Joyce) are of the MCC tour to Uganda and Namibia
• The usual trip to India went ahead
• Owais Shah has been developing his off spin skills in the UAE
• The team are now back in training

Scott Styris

• There has been no word from the New Zealand Cricket Board about the severity of Scott's injury
• If everything goes to plan, he will be here by April 20

Chad Keegan

• Chad has had an injection in his lower back which means he should be pain free till the end of the season.
• The actual severity of the injury wont be known until the effect of the injection wears off at the end of the season.
• Chad is determined to start the season
• In Ben Hutton's view, he (Hutton) has to be more sensible about how he uses Chad as a bowling.

New Signings

• The club are pleased with the players signed
• Ed Smith will enable the team to score runs more quickly and hopefully create more positive results
• Alan Richardson was described as consistant and will play a big part in our season

Andy Strauss' avalibility

• Andy will be avalible for the first 3-4 County Championship matches and first 4-5 one day games
• He is resting till the end of March

Owais Shah's bowling

• Owais is not shy about telling everyone about his bowling abilities.
• The club feel he needs to work more on it and hinted he could bowl more during the season

Ben Hutton's aims for the season

• With the County Championship he is under no illusion about the competitiveness of the divison and the team must continue to be competitive
• Not having a world class spinner is a major blow
• We have a very good chance in all competitions
• The team need to improve their smartness in the one day game and adapt more
• More players need to be match winners

David Nash

• Nashy is fit now
• He will start the season and could be used in matches as a specialist batsman

Nick Compton

• Nick was due back last Tuesday
• He had a re-occurence of his injury and wanted to stay in South Africa (Can you blame him?)
• The club's view was as we employ him, we should be the ones treating him
• He isn't going back to university
• He should be match fit in 2-3 weeks

Second XI

• There are no players over the age of 20
• A few players left to be replaced by younger players
• It isn't that easy to bring players into the first team
• All Second XI playerd get help for the first team players

Billy Godleman

• The recent article in Wisden will lead to a lot of pressure
• He could have played at the end of last season had a batsmen been injured
• He is in his last year of school
• The club need to be careful how they control him

Page two of forum review