Coldplay's Chris Martin joins the Essex bowling attack

Essex announced today that they’ve signed New Zealand pace bowler and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin as their overseas player for late April to early May, covering for spinner Danish Kaneria who’s involved in a domestic tournament in Pakistan during this period.

The 35-year-old right arm fast medium bowler is awaiting a visa but should be available for Essex’s match against Lancashire at Chelmsford beginning next Wednesday (April 21). Martin will be registered with the ECB for the minimum 21 day period so he’ll also be available for selection up to and including the Championship game against Yorkshire which starts on May 4.

An experienced cricketer who’s represented New Zealand in all forms of the game, Martin’s dogged bowling has seen him rise to fourth highest wicket taker in Kiwi history with 56 Tests to his name.

However, he’s renowned for his dreadful batting and it took him 36 Tests to reach double figures. CricInfo.com calls him “outrageously feeble with the bat” adding “Getting Martin out is as difficult as making a cup of tea and often takes less time.”

But Martin hasn’t been snapped up for his batting. Before the start of the season, experts were saying that Essex’s bowling attack could be the weak link in their bid for a successful return to the top flight of the County Championship.

With Kaneria absent for much of the season, Essex do look a little lightweight with the ball - David Masters and Chris Wright need to step up this season and prove that they can cut it at the highest level of the county game.

With the likes of Daniel Vettori and Yusuf Pathan previously being touted as overseas signings, Martin might not seem the most illustrious recruitment but his reliance on accuracy and seam movement may suit conditions in England. His ability to craft a catchy, heartfelt tune is thought to have been a major factor in the club's decision to sign him, with Essex keen to keep morale high in the dressing room in the wake of spot betting allegations against two players.

It is unknown whether Chris Martin intends to work on new material for his band Coldplay while in the UK. Sources close to Martin says he wants to concentrate on cricket and not get "bogged down" with songwriting.

Meanwhile, with the decision on Essex’s proposed ground development at Chelmsford deferred until June because of the general election, it seems the county have been looking at the possibility of using the Olympic Stadium in Stratford as a venue for Twenty20 matches.

The East London stadium could be one of Essex’s festival grounds (like Southend and Colchester) and it’s thought matches would generate a lot of interest in an area otherwise lacking in first class cricket. With talk in the air once again of a possible English city franchise Twenty20 competition, the Olympic Stadium might also provide a suitable setting for such a competition were Essex to be involved.

Essex began their second championship match against Durham at the Riverside, buoyed by their dramatic win against Hampshire but facing the reigning two-time champions.

*Warning: This blog contains blatant untruths.

Highs and lows

What a few days it’s been for Essex.

Highs and lows probably doesn’t do justice to the contrasting emotions the players must have been going through at the County Ground recently.

News broke on Friday that two Essex players were being investigated for ‘spot fixing’ a specific type of illegal betting that doesn’t necessarily affect results but does involve certain events taking place during a match. Essex Police are investigating the claims and were apparently alerted by a member of the playing squad. National papers have named players who, if found guilty, will face severe punishments.

So it must have been with gritted teeth and tightly clenched jaws that the Essex players came out to play the first game of the season last Friday, their return to the LV Championship Division One being an encounter with Hampshire.

After a bright start from Essex, especially debutant Billy Godleman who nearly scored a century, the game looked to be petering out to a draw by day three. But then it Hants sniffed victory on the fourth day when, needing 248 to win, were 170 for four and looked in control.

Enter Ryan ten Doeschate (pictured). Having already helped rescue Essex’s second innings from collapse with a sturdy 66 not out, the Dutch all-rounder produced an astounding spell of bowling which saw him take five wickets for just 13 runs in 5.5 overs, taking Hampshire’s last wicket with the penultimate ball of the day to secure an unlikely victory.

Who says the County Championship can’t be exciting and produce results?

It wasn’t just ten Doeschate who shined for Essex in their season opener. Godleman can be very pleased with his well-compiled 92 debut knock for the county while James Foster showed his prowess with the bat once again with a tidy 88 in the first innings. Expect the inevitable clamour for him to be considered for the England wicketkeeper’s position if he produces a couple more innings like that in the next week or so.

Tom Westley will also be chuffed with his second innings 69 which dug Essex out of a hole after losing their openers cheaply.

If nothing else, the Hampshire win it shows this Essex team has resilience. A siege mentality can set in when teams face adversity and if this is the case, Essex could be set for a successful return to the top tier of the County Championship.

They’ll need to be at their best for their next match… a trip to the north east to face reigning champs Durham on Thursday.

Mighty oaks

As the new county season stirs into action, we have to bid a fond farewell to one of England's finest ever bowlers. Alec Bedser passed away over the weekend and the affectionate tributes have been pouring in ever since.

In The Times, Christopher Martin-Jenkins said it was as if "an old and mighty oak tree has fallen at last" while Richard Williams in The Guardian recalls seeing Alec and his twin Eric at the 1953 Ryder Cup dressed in "matching tweed suits, check shirts, club ties and proper shoes, and seated side by side on identical shooting sticks."

How very different cricket and the world is now to those days when Bedser was turning his massive shoulders to befuddle batsman with his fast-medium deliveries, especially his famous leg-cutter.

Don Bradman rated him highly, struck up an abiding friendship with the young bowler when he wrote to him for advice and declared one ball from Bedser that had got him out in an Ashes match as the greatest delivery he had faced.

Life and cricket move on relentlessly, but it is not just moist-eyed nostalgia that should make us remember the likes of Bedser.

Read below for some inspiring tales about humble men who played cricket for the sheer love of the game...

Alec Bedser

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/cricket/article7087653.ece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/apr/06/alec-bedser-tribute-mike-selvey

Tom Graveney

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/feb/18/tom-graveney-mike-selvey

Problems with foreign bodies

If Essex were none too pleased last week when the Indian Cricket Board scuppered Yusuf Pathan’s plans to play for the county in the t20 campaign, there'll be smoke coming out of their ears with the news that the Pakistan board have this week delayed the arrival of Danish Kaneria until the end of April - especially as it’s to allow him to play in a domestic competition.

Kaneria is one of the world’s best bowlers and has been a star performer for Essex since his first stint here in 2004. Last season he claimed 108 wickets in all competitions for the county with 75 of those in the championship including a hat-trick in the last game of the season against Derbyshire which helped clinch promotion to Division One.

In a short statement announcing Kaneria’s delayed arrival, Essex chief exec David East says the news is “disappointing” but behind the scenes the county’s management team must be livid as not only have they lost their most effective bowler for the first month of the season but it is likely Kaneria will also be unavailable for the final three months of the 2010 campaign when he'll be on international duty with Pakistan. This means he’ll only be available for Essex during May and June.

Perhaps most tellingly, Essex coach Paul Grayson says he is “disappointed but not surprised” by the news. The cricket boards of the subcontinent are probably not the most popular organisations with the counties at the moment. Reneging on done deals is never going to make you friends, especially when those same counties have released players for the IPL.

A week after the hammer blow of losing the explosive Yusuf for the t20, Essex now faces another search for an overseas player in what is already becoming a “bits and pieces” season where players may have to be drafted in for short stints of a few weeks. And this is before the County Championship even starts this Friday.

For Essex’s management team this must be a real headache. They thought they had the Pathan deal sewn up back in February and were no doubt counting on Kaneria spearheading their start to the season. Now they will look to find a player for all competitions for half of the season as well as one for the annual Twenty20 bonanza. This means a lot of work will have to be done in a short space of time.

After the Pathan deal fell through, David East said: “We’re not just going to go out there and buy anyone, they’ve got to add some value to our team. If there isn’t anyone available that will add value to our team then we won’t do it.”

The problem Essex have is such a player will not only have to add value to the team, he'll need to add dosh to their bank account after their recent statement about last season’s financial losses.

Like it or not, Twenty20 is every team’s biggest money-spinner where a capacity crowd is a minimum requirement for the county’s coffers. And a big name player would certainly help ensure big crowds at the County Ground during the balmy evenings of June and July.

Here we go again...

Pouring rain, plummeting temperatures, a great gnashing of teeth about the future of the game... it must be the start of the cricket season.

As ever, there's lot to ponder as the domestic season stirs into action once again, from the wisdom of Andrew Strauss relinquishing the England captaincy to Alastair Cook for the Bangladesh tour to the traditional curtain-raiser of the English season between the MCC and the County Champions (Durham again) being played in Abu Dhabi... with pink balls.

That'll have retired colonels spitting out their tea with outrage the length and breadth of the country.

These days cricket is an all-year round sport - I've certainly been enjoying watching the flash and bravado of the IPL on ITV4 - but there's nothing quite like the start of the game in the shires of this country. It is one of the enduring joys of spring to think of groundsmen preparing pitches, pads beings dusted off and packed in kit bags and leathery orbs being thwacked by lengths of willow by apple-cheeked yeoman.

Before this turns into a John Major style eulogy about how cricket is the best sport in the world (and it is), I'll sign off, but the aim with this blog over the coming months is to provide a fun, light-hearted but affectionate look at the glorious game, especially with regards to my county, Essex, and my country, England.

Tootle pip for now...

Fry bowls Lord's over

The wonderful Stephen Fry gave a speech to the great and the good of cricket at Lord's the other night and was good enough to post it on his website http://www.stephenfry.com/blog/2009/07/16/cricket-speech-presented-at-lords-14th-july-2009/ It is a lovely and hilarious tribute to cricket in all its sweet and silly glory.

Zingers and zooters

"With great beard comes great responsibility..."

Morning everyone, I've been a rubbish blogger but I promise to be better. Excited about today's cricket... the Aussies have the upper hand in the first Test but if England can bowl with some fire and then bat with resolution and restraint they can not only save the match but maybe even win it. Or maybe it's just better if it rains a lot.

I'm probably even more excited about the prospect of Richie Benaud returning to our screens, albeit it only for brief Saturday stints in Five's coverage. Be good to hear some banter between him and Boycott again. Talking of banter, there's some great badinage flowing back and forth on Twitter. Bumble, Aggers, Dizzy Gillespie, Tuffers, Swanny, TMS, Malcolm Ashton are all on there, Bumble is hilarious. Cricket is definitely as much about banter and camaraderie as it is bowling and batting! If you're on Twitter, I'm HoracePecksniff for some reason I can't really remember.

Right, let's get things going with an over of zingers and zooters, as dear Richie might put it...

1) Welcome back, Richie - the Blessed Benaud is back in the commentary box in England (or Wales) today and that is a matter for rejoicing. The Guardian's Barney Ronay always comes up with some witty stuff and his homage to Richie is excellent http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/jul/03/ashes-richie-benaud-commentary He calls Benaud "Yoda-like, cream-jacketed and always unobtrusively on the money..." Marvellous.

2) Freak dismissal - Cricket is wonderful because it's so formal and rule-bound on the one hand, but strange and surprising on the other. This week, Ed Joyce experienced the latter, caught by Jonathan Trott at short leg... when the ball landed in the right pocket of his trousers http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/counties/8142712.stm

3) Heads down - One thing that England's batters need to do is to turn solid starts and decent scores into centuries. At least one of Strauss, Bopara, Pieterson, Collingwood, Prior and Flintoff should have made three figures. If they can't do that this summer, then it's hard to see England winning back the Ashes. The Aussies do this as a matter of course. Ricky 'Punter' Ponting's determination and shot selection were excellent. He hardly ever gives his wicket away cheaply and that's what England's batsmen need to learn to do. Same with Essex actually. New boy Hashim Amla (see below) showed how that should be done yesterday, with his dogged second innings 181 saving the game against Glamorgan. Essex batters rarely seem to get Championship centuries at the moment.

4) Hashim Amla - "With great beard comes great responsibility" That's what hirsute Stanford-le-Hope spoken word maestro Scroobius Pip says on his MySpace and Essex's new overseas signing Hashim Amla surely knows this. No doubt Amla's impressive beardage is a result of his religious convictions, but like Mr Pip it certainly helps power along his performances. In fact, I've never seen Messrs Pip and Amla in the same room... Beards and cricket have a long history together. WG Grace is probably the most famously and extravagantly bearded cricketer of all time. Popular myth says that bowlers would often lose the ball in his mighty, bristling facial hair. Big beards are not much in fashion any more, on the cricket pitch or otherwise, but I hope that Amla can help reverse that trend.

5) Yes, It's The Ashes - So, a bit of lively cricket conversation and comedy with 5Live show Yes, It's The Ashes on Saturday morns at 11am with Andy Zaltzman. I'm listening to TMS but I'm gonna listen on iPlayer later http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/

6) The Scotch Egg - I've touched on cricket and snacks before, but never really thought about what cricketers might smell like. I prefer chomping on pink wafers, Choc Dips and Monster Munch while watching the glorious game. But here, Barney Ronay (again) speculates that Aussie quickie Peter Siddle may actually smell of scotch egg... http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/jul/11/peter-siddle-ashes-australia-barney-ronay It's an intriguing proposition. I think Ronay's (subconscious) thinking comes from the resemblance Siddle bears to Alan Partridge at times, parting his lips to reveal a cheesy grimace. And, of course, Alan liked a scotch egg but feared the repercussions.