Cricket Diary: Yorkshire chase Tait

By Richard Gibson

Cash-strapped Yorkshire want to follow Roses rivals Lancashire's lead and host pop concerts. Leeds City Council will this week discuss the proposal of the club – whose debts hovered close to £20million a year ago - to be the venue for up to three shows per year.

Lancashire have attracted some of the world’s biggest bands over the past decade, and secured a significant financial windfall towards Old Trafford’s redevelopment as a result.

However, they have also come under fire for the state of their ground post-gigs: most notably in 2007 when then Hampshire captain Shane Warne said the playing area was in a ‘disgusting’ state for a County Championship match following an Arctic Monkeys concert.

Other acts to have graced Old Trafford include Oasis, Radiohead and most recently Kings of Leon. Yorkshire are hopeful of their first 15,000-capacity show being staged this summer but could yet face opposition from local residents.

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On the field, Yorkshire are front-runners to sign Shaun Tait for the Friends Life t20 competition this summer. Tait, 29, has been in impressive form for Adelaide Strikers in the Big Bash League and played under Yorkshire coach Jason Gillespie, his former South Australia team-mate, with MidWest Rhinos in Zimbabwe.

The former Australia fast bowler limits himself to Twenty20 postings around the world due to a recurring elbow problem, but has had to pull out of two recent agreements, with Surrey in 2011 and South Africa’s Dolphins franchise the following winter. However, the worst of it appears to be behind him following surgery and he turned out for Wellington in New Zealand prior to his stint with the Strikers.

David Miller, the hard-hitting South African international batsman, is scheduled to return as 2012 runners-up Yorkshire’s second overseas player in Twenty20.

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Two Liams with England connections, at different junctures of their careers, headed to Adelaide this month to prepare for the 2013 domestic summer.

The exact destination for Liam Plunkett and Liam Gough was the Darren Lehmann Cricket Academy, a place where England’s most recent Test cap Joe Root dwelled just a couple of years ago.

Plunkett, 27, has spent time in South Australia before, playing grade cricket for Adelaide University the winter before his England debut in November 2005. He is desperate to invigorate a career that has dwindled in the past few years despite the last of his 39 international appearances coming in 2011, and hopes the switch from Durham to Yorkshire, the county of his birth, will help.

Eighteen-year-old Gough, son of former England fast bowler Darren Gough, is also part of the January intake. The batting all-rounder joined the MCC Young Cricketers on a two-year deal and is looking to improve his game at the academy which is also temporary home to England Under-19 graduates Daniel Bell-Drummond and Aneesh Kapil.

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It may only be coincidence that Shane Warne’s altercation with Marlon Samuels during the Melbourne Twenty20 derby came a matter of hours after a lower-profile bust-up between the West Indian all-rounder and Adelaide Strikers coach Darren Berry.

Warne’s ugly spat – shown on terrestrial television news over here – earned him a fine and a one-match ban. Berry, Warne’s close pal during their playing days with Victoria, was placed on report by the Big Bash League for a heated verbal exchange on the eve of Melbourne Renegades’ previous match.

Earlier in the tournament, Brisbane Heat coach Darren Lehmann was reprimanded by Cricket Australia for questioning the legality of Samuels’ bowling action.

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Date: 07/01/2013 16:30:22 by Richard Gibson
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