Double recognition for fast-emerging Wright

By Paul Bolton, County News Correspondent

Chris Wright’s breakthrough season for Warwickshire has received double recognition with his inclusion in the England Performance Programme squad and his shortly-listing for the NatWest Professional Cricketers’ Association Player of the Year Award.

The former Middlesex and Essex fast bowler took 62 wickets in helping Warwickshire to win the LV= County Championship and a further 20 in the Clydesdale Bank 40 competition.

Warwickshire’s bowling coach Graeme Welch, who was instrumental in bringing Wright to Edgbaston after he was released last season by Essex, has long believed that his protégé has the talent to go further in the game and he will now have the opportunity having been included in the EPP squad for the trip to India in November.

Wright’s county team-mate Varun Chopra, who passed 1,000 first-class runs for the second successive season, is also in the EPP squad but Keith Barker, who reached 50 Championship wickets for the first time, has to make do with a trip to the Hong Kong Sixes next month.

Barker will wear an England shirt for the first time in a side that will be captained by Leicestershire’s Josh Cobb and which also includes Derbyshire’s fast improving all-rounder Ross Whiteley.

The 27-year-old Wright will discover on Thursday evening whether he has won the coveted PCA award when the players’ union holds its annual awards ceremony at Battersea Evolution.

Wright has been shortlisted along with Somerset’s England newcomer Nick Comtpon, who has already won the Cricket Writers’ Club's inaugural County Championship Cricketer of the Year award, Durham and England paceman Graham Onions and Somerset all-rounder Peter Trego.


Date: 18/09/2012 17:21:44 by Paul Bolton
In: Warwickshire | Today |