We take a brief look at the top eleven up and coming talented youngsters who will be on display in county cricket over the English summer. The qualifiers are all under the age of 23 and are looking to establish themselves in their respective county sides this season.
Steven Finn (19) – Middlesex – Opening Right Arm Medium-Fast Bowler
Standing at an imposing 6 foot 8 inches tall, Finn is a real prospect. He debuted for Middlesex at the tender age of 16 and has taken 13 wickets in his 4 matches to date. He has been a regular for England U19’s and is looking to establish himself this year. He will have an excellent chance to do so given the release of Richard Johnson, Chad Keegan, Chris Wright and Chris Whelan. He will be vying with Tim Murtagh for the final bowling place in the County Championship side, providing of course that Chris Silverwood and Alan Richardson remain fit. Finn also plays Basketball rather unsurprisingly.
Laurie Evans (20) – Surrey – Right Hand Middle Order Batsman
Evans made his breakthrough at the end of last season and scored 365 runs in just eight first class innings, with a top score of 133 not out and an average just in excess of fifty. That is fine going indeed, but it will be interesting to see how he fares on the greener, wetter, spring time wickets. He will be given plenty of opportunities to impress this year at Surrey, with both Ricki Clarke and Azhar Mahmood having moved on and Alistair Brown, Mark Ramprakash and Mark Butcher all in the twilights of their respective careers.
2 comments:
Nice idea Chris, and it'll be fascinating to see who else you pick.
Intrigued to see Evans there - hope he can live up to your hype! But a 50 against West Indies for MCC is a decent enough start. He hasn't made a championship debut yet though.
It's becoming a big regret of mine that I missed a Sunday game a couple of years ago which would have meant playing against Steve Finn.
My club, Greenwood Park, is a small club languishing in Herts League 9, running just one Saturday and Sunday team. Anyway, on a given Sunday we were without a fixture and went to the conference for a game. Up came Lngleybury colts, who were far too strong for us. Opening the bowling for them was the 16 year old Steve Finn, who quickly made a mess of our batting even if he did only bowl two overs before reealising he was far too good for us.
We did manage to bat out 40 overs. No-one ended up in double figures, with our opener getting a ton and everyone else single figures.
Hilarious at the time, but I'm now really annoyed that I wasn't playing.
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