By Glenn Pearson
Three seam bowlers have been given a chance to impress at Kent and earn themselves a county deal.
Medium-fast bowlers Jahid Ahmed, Dave Burton and Will Rudge have all been invited along to pre-season training at the St Lawrence indoor centre, with the club hopeful that at least one may grasp what’s likely to be their final opportunity of playing county cricket.
Right-arm seamer Will Rudge is probably the most impressive and has county experience having played 14 first-class games for Gloucestershire. He was released in 2008 but at 25 – the same age as Kent’s Phil Edwards – time is not on his side.
Burton, 24, has tried his luck at Kent for the last two pre-season campaigns without any success. He has featured for seven counties, which included making his first-class debut for Gloucestershire in 2006, before moving on to Middlesex, but has made just a further three first-class appearances since making his debut four years ago.
Ahmed, a 23-year-old seamer from Essex, looked promising in the nets but the test for him will come in March when training is held outdoors on the grass wickets at Canterbury.
He has claimed 13 first-class wickets at 41.69 since making his debut in 2005, although has only gone on to play seven times for Essex, with the last coming in a tour match against the West Indies last summer where he claimed 2 for 55 from 11 overs.
Kent head coach Paul Farbrace will be keeping a watchful eye on their progress and hopes one will step up and take advantage of the opportunity.
“All three have committed to pre-season which is fantastic for us and shows they are committed to the cause,” he said. “They are aware that we haven’t got pots of cash but we do have pots of opportunities.
“We are after seam bowlers and if they show they have something then we can develop that, what we don’t have is time because they have a short shelf life being in the early 20s so we don’t have much time.”
The county have also got leg-spinner Asfal Afridi, brother of Pakistan one-day captain Shahid, on trial, and are hopeful of trialling several other players in the next couple of months. One of those is 20-year-old Yorkshire 2nd XI seamer Michael Chadwick, although, rivals Sussex could snap him up after taking him on an overseas tour.
Farbrace added: “We won’t make a decision until the end of the season but we have another couple lined up who are playing Grade cricket in Australia, so they will come pre-season and we’ll have a look at them.”
POSTED: 01/02/2010 08:35:23
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