Rudolph tips Northeast for Test arena

By Mark Baldwin

Jacques Rudolph, the South African batsman, has tipped Kent's Sam Northeast as a future England Test player. It is a huge confidence-booster for the 22-year-old Northeast, who began this season out of the Kent team but has reawakened in the last six weeks a career that seemed to be stalling following his prolific schoolboy years and a first-class debut at the age of 17 in 2007.

Rudolph watched Northeast score 35 and then 54 not out in the drawn three-day match at Canterbury, which was the South Africans' final warm-up for this week's First Investec Test against Andrew Strauss's England at the Kia Oval, and then sang the praises of both Northeast and his teenage opening partner Daniel Bell-Drummond, who hit 42 and 48 not out in the game.

The two youngsters began the match by putting together a stand of 81 in Kent's first innings on Friday and ended it by producing a sparkling unbeaten partnership of 105 in just 22 overs in the final session yesterday.

"I have had the opportunity to play against Sam on a number of occasions when I was at Yorkshire," said Rudolph, 31. "The one thing that stood out for me about Sam's batting in this game, and that of Bell-Drummond too for that matter, was his composure.

"He was facing up to one of the best bowling attacks in world cricket, but he was still able to put the pressure back on those bowlers with the way he batted. I was impressed too with Bell-Drummond, and both of them have excellent futures ahead of them. But I would definitely expect Sam to be an England Test batsman in the future, from what I've seen of him over the last few years and again in this game."

Northeast, who also captained a predominantly youthful Kent team against the South Africans - only he, batsman Mike Powell, all-rounder Matt Coles and veteran seamer Charlie Shreck can be certain of their places in Kent's County Championship fixture against Glamorgan at Canterbury which starts on Thursday (July 19) - needed a couple of good one-day innings in late May to win back a place in the county's four-day line-up in early June, against Hampshire at Tunbridge Wells.

He hit a second innings 79 in that match, followed it up with some good Twenty20 knocks in the Friends Life t20 group stage, and is now batting with the authority and flair that always marked him out as a special talent when he was setting run-scoring records at Harrow School and working his way throught the Kent age group teams.

Bell-Drummond, meanwhile, who is not 19 until August 4 and will be playing in England's ICC Under-19 World Cup team in Australia next month, also looks ready to break into Kent's senior ranks - either before the Under-19 World Cup, at which England are captained by Kent's Adam Ball, or afterwards.



Date: 16/07/2012 06:00:00 by MBaldwin
In: Today | Kent |