Sunday 28 April 2013 12:24, UK
County cricket returns to Sky Sports with a bang on Thursday as defending champions Warwickshire take on last season's runners-up Somerset in a Championship clash at Taunton.
Could you say the same about Rikki Clarke, who has just signed a new four-year contract at Edgbaston? NICK: We know where Rikki Clarke is now. Quite clearly he has responded to the Edgbaston environment and playing under Ashley Giles. At 31 he's a lot more mature now and is probably at the peak of his powers. By his own admission, he let things go a little bit earlier in his career, has realised the error of his ways and is putting them right. It's not too late for Rikki to find his way back into that England set up. Nick Compton's selection at 29 has shown that if you have an outstanding season then the selectors will have a look at you. Rikki has got a great season ahead of him; I think he's a very good player. I've talked about him now for a year or two and have been hoping that the England selectors won't ignore him. Now they haven't, he has to prove his worth to them. Will Warwickshire be up there or thereabouts this season? NICK: I think so, for the reasons above and because they've got a very strong five, six, seven, eight, nine; if they find themselves 30-3, which they will at some stage, they are still a hard side to knock over for 350-450 because the likes of Clarke, Darren Maddy, Tim Ambrose and Chris Woakes can all bat. It's reminiscent of the era in which I played when we had Giles, Brown and Welch and Neil Smith. Sides might think they are through only to be thwarted by the middle and lower middle order, which in partnership with their attack, serves Warwickshire so well. Somerset finished fourth in 2011 and were runners-up last year. Are they still on an upward curve? BOB: I think Somerset will struggle to better their second place of last year; they did very well last season to finish as high as they did given that they were without Marcus Trescothick for most of the time. There's no doubt that as a collective unit their batsmen are going to get lots of runs - the question is whether they have the bowling attack to win enough matches and I'd say that their prospects are stronger in one-day cricket than the four-day game. They do play on sportier wickets now at Taunton, but I think they'll still have their work cut out to bowl sides out twice. I don't think their bowling attack is as good as some of the other contenders up at the top of the table. The Warwickshire contest will be a good pointer to see how they are going to go this time around. What do you make of the way the side is shaping up this season? BOB: They've decided, probably with a nudge from England, to move Nick Compton up to open the innings, Alviro Petersen is a quality act and you can generally rely on James Hildreth to fill his boots at Taunton. Personally, I'd like to see Jos Buttler move up the order so he has the chance to prove what he can do in the longer form of the game. They've got some good triers in the seam department - Steve Kirby will run in all day as will Peter Trego, and Alfonso Thomas (when he's free of the IPL) can be a handful. They are a bit thin in the spin department, though. George Dockrell is a decent prospect but he's not the finished article yet. That's definitely Somerset's weakest area for me. What do you like about Petersen as a batsman? BOB: Getting into that South Africa top order is no easy task - Graeme Smith, Hashim Amla, Jacques Kallis and AB de Villiers are all world-class players. But Petersen has tremendous powers of concentration - he's certainly not a 'flash Harry'. He's got a good technique against quick bowling and takes very few risks early on. He's what you might call an old-fashioned opening batsman. I don't think he's at his best against spin bowling but that's true of a lot of South African players because they didn't see much of it in their domestic cricket for many years. Can Buttler and Kieswetter enhance their five-day prospects in the four-day game? BOB: If Hildreth bats at four, Buttler and Kieswetter could once again find their opportunities to express themselves rather limited at five and six. The onus is on them to deliver a great volume of runs. They are both very unselfish and quite a bit more than flash-in-the-pan players - they are both decent batsmen so when Somerset do get into difficulties they've got to show that they can bat for long periods of time and put together big scores. In some ways it is going to be a straight shoot-out between the two of them. Buttler is probably England's favourite son at the moment and I'm a big fan of his. Like Eoin Morgan, there is that little bit of magic in his game that England have got to make the most of and hone him into a top-class performer. Sky Sports will show each county at least three times this summer, with 60 live fixtures from the Yorkshire Bank 40, LV=County Championship and Friends Life t20. For more details click here...
