Mark Davies wows in an understated way

Steve Harmison's still busy with England, but with Liam Plunkett having been banished to county cricket, Durham have got quite a seam attack.

There's Plunkett himself who'll be watched with interest. There's also Graham Onions, the cricketing cognoscenti's young pace bowler of choice for this season. He's the man whose name crops up whenever anyone's asked 'what other young bowler is doing well in county cricket at the moment?'

The third member of Durham's pace bowling unit is never mentioned in this way. It's Mark Davies and he's currently outbowling both Plunkett and Onions. As usual.

In Durham's current county championship match, Mark Davies took 2-32 in Hampshire's first innings. This is classic Mark Davies. Not many wickets, but very few runs. In the second innings he took 4-48. A better wicket haul, but crucially one wicket short of being newsworthy.

Against Lancashire last week, Davies took 4-62 and 3-34. You can see how cheaply he gets his wickets, can't you? Graham Onions went wicketless in that match, but he'll get a five-for at some point and hit the headlines.

Will Jefferson and Stuart Broad selected for England A

Only it's not England A. It's 'England Lions'.

Ian Brown once said: "There are no lions in England". Now he's been flatly contradicted. There will be 11 Lions and Will Jefferson and Stuart Broad will be among their number.

Stuart Broad lists 'growing taller' among his hobbies. Perhaps Will Jefferson's presence will inspire Stuart to ever greater heights.

They should have renamed the side 'England Brobdingnagians'.

Nick Compton tips the cup of runs

Nick Compton hasn't appeared to be as run-thirsty as usual so far this season. He's taken a couple of sips of runs, but no large mouthful and certainly nothing approaching a quaff.

Yesterday, he hit his first hundred of the season, 110 not out, as Middlesex lost to Sussex in the catchily-named Friends Provident Trophy. The cup of runs has been tipped and Nick Compton will drink.

Drink, Nick. Drink! May your pull shots wet your lips. May your leg-glances fill your mouth. May your cover drives nearly drown you.

Drink! Drink from the cup of runs until it appears almost empty, then produce a second, slightly larger cup of runs and drink from that. When that runs dry, reveal to us that you have taken the opportunity to refill the first cup while you were drinking from the second. Drain the first cup once again.

Surprise us with a third cup of unusual dimensions and with an embossed design - drink from that. Attempt to drink from all three cups of runs simultaneously in a conspicuous attempt to persuade Peter Moores of your unquenchable thirst for runs.

Drink, Nick Compton! DRINK!

Bilal Shafayat hits a one-day hundred

This post should have appeared yesterday, but we were far too busy writing reams and reams about the World Cup final with precisely no regard as to whether anyone wanted to read it or not.

Bilal Shafayat hit a one-day hundred against his former county, Northamptonshire. He did this while playing for his previous former county, Nottinghamshire.

Bilal Shafayat's gone home this season, you see. Back to the bosom of Nottinghamshire having cheated on his home county with Northants for a couple of seasons. Now he's returned, wiser and more settled, yet also all revved-up. As a result of this, he's scoring hundreds at will.

So far his will has requested just the one hundred.

James Benning helps Surrey to world record one-day score

The 2007 Ones To Watch are already putting 2006's to shame, even if they are largely the same players.

Surrey hit a world record 496-4 against Gloucestershire yesterday. Ali Brown's 176 off 97 balls was perhaps the headline-grabber, but James Benning's 152 off 134 balls was perhaps the more intriguing for the future.

We like James Benning. James Benning makes us right about stuff. The last time we were right about something was when we were five and Matthew said that America stretched all through the Arctic, Europe, Asia and Africa. We didn't even manage to make Matthew accept that he was wrong on that occasion.

Adil Rashid five-fer against Durham

Is that right? Do you change the spelling to 'fer' when you use that phrase? We should standardise this as soon as possible or we'll have a repeat of that embarrassing time when we spelt 'Sourav' as 'Saurav' for about six months.

Adil Rashid's living up to his One To Watch billing thus far. He'll need to do more to justify his 'tip' status however. A tip is three or four better than being One To Watch. Possibly even five better.

Round one of the County Championship brought Adil Rashid scores of 86 and 19 and 4-105 and 3-64 against Surrey. Yesterday, he took 5-88 against Durham.

This is particularly encouraging being as it's early season and Adil's a leg-spinner. Normally early season wickets are the preserve of innocuosos like James Kirtley - fast-medium bowlers who stick to the basics.

Adil Rashid, Yorkshire - one to watch in 2007

Give England cricket fans a leg-spinner and they flock together muttering excitedly about 'the chosen one'. Give them an all-rounder and they genuflect and dab incense all over themselves. Given them a leg-spinning all-rounder and they'll be sacrificing second team wicketkeepers before you know it.

We're proud to be among them. Adil Rashid is like some supernatural blending of Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar.

Note to Adil Rashid:

Sorry, mate. There's no way you can live up to this. Just give it a crack and we promise we'll always be nice to you, even if you get bowled by a straight one from Andrew Hall.

Other Ones To Watch in 2007

Stuart Broad, Leicestershire - one to watch in 2007

Good action: Long and narrow - fits nicely to the right of our writing. Lasith Malina: Bad action - too wide; interferes with the prose.

Stuart Broad keeps getting taller and faster. Working on the theory that he nearly played for the Test team last year, if he's a little bit taller and a little bit faster this year, he's a shoo-in (stupid phrase).

There are altogether too many 'promising' young fast bowlers at the moment and altogether too few fully functioning ones. Stuart Broad seems the most likely to cross that divide.

Other Ones To Watch in 2007

James Benning, Surrey - one to watch in 2007

James Benning wasn't due to appear in this segment for another couple of days, but we've bumped him up because he seems very relevant today.

Half of England's problems during the World Cup seem to have stemmed from their ponderous approach at the start of the innings. Obviously Marcus Trescothick is the man most missed, but even with his inclusion, there'd still be two sedentary batsmen to one enforcer. We'd like to reverse that ratio in time for the next World Cup (Ian Bell would be the surviving plodder).

So then: James Benning. He's 23. He opens the batting and he loves - just adores - scoring quickly. He's hit four first-class hundreds in 20 matches and he scores at 81 runs per hundred balls. To reiterate, that's in four day cricket. That's about the speed Ricky Ponting scores in one-day internationals. He's only hit the one one-day hundred, but it was 189 not out off 146 balls.

Other Ones To Watch in 2007

Bilal Shafayat, Nottinghamshire - one to watch in 2007

Bilal Shafayat's another who appeared last year. It's like we're not even trying, isn't it?

He was solid if unspectacular last year, so this year he'll have to push on. He's gone back home to Nottinghamshire, which might help him. Plus, he's grown a smashing beard.

Actually, we've just read our verdict on Bilal Shafayat from the end of last year. The word 'failure' appears quite frequently. Maybe we should have checked these things before selecting this year's representatives.

Other Ones To Watch in 2007

Tom Smith, Lancashire - one to watch in 2007

Last year Tom Smith was a late addition to our Ones To Watch after he'd impressed us on the opening day of the season.

We've been swinging between reincluding Tom or replacing him with Kyle Hogg, who also looked pretty good when we saw him last season. As you can see, we've gone for Tom Smith. This is partly loyalty and partly our discovery that he has 'a bowling face'.

A bowling face is a crucial part of a young cricketer's development. If you've no bowling face, you can only ever go so far. With a bowling face in your armoury, the sky's the limit.

Hopefully his batting will pick up as well. He's rumoured to be 'handy'.

Other Ones To Watch in 2007

Matt Prior, Sussex - one to watch in 2007

Steven Davies of Worcestershire is the wicketkeeper to watch this year, but we've been watching Matt Prior for bloody years now, so we're not going to abandon him when he's finally about to make the Test team (probably).

Plus, if there's a cricketer on this planet whose consistency as a photographic subject is superior to Matt Prior's, we haven't laid eyes on them. This post links to the best Matt Prior photos.

Other Ones To Watch in 2007

Mark Davies, Durham - one to watch in 2007

Mark Davies was also one to watch in 2006. If you'd done as instructed, you'd have mostly seen someone watching cricket on teletext, looking a bit glum because his back wasn't better yet.

This year we're optimistically imagining that Mark Davies is back to full fitness, has praid to Thor and Odin and is ready to pillage county cricket for wickets by the longboat-load.

Other Ones To Watch in 2007

Nick Compton, Middlesex - one to watch in 2007

Nick Compton was a sort of pseudo-One To Watch last year, in that we watched his progress anyway, without naming him.

As far as we can tell Nick Compton has a virtually unquenchable thirst for runs, which is a good thing for a batsman. Look at him. Look at Nick. Look at how parched he is even after he's scored his 12th hundred of the day.

'That boy's thirst for runs is unquenchable' they'll say in county grounds around the land. 'You're not wrong,' Nick'll reply. 'I'm mighty thirsty. Thirsty for EVEN MORE runs.' And he'll drink and drink from the cup of runs, never once feeling satisfied, even when runs are dribbling down his chest because he's so tired of run-drinking he can't open his mouth properly.

Nick Compton also has a thirst for HIGH FASHION.

Other Ones To Watch in 2007

Will Jefferson, Nottinghamshire - one to watch in 2007

Will Jefferson was one to watch in 2006, but he didn't play much. As a result of this he left Essex and moved to Nottinghamshire.

So Will's one to watch again, partly because we didn't get much out of him last year, partly because we rate him very highly, but mostly because he's a giant - that race of oversized benevolent beings who are our guardians and overlords.

If we're extra nice to Will, he might let us in on some of the secrets behind his alien technology. Or he might crush us without mercy. You never can tell with the giants.

Ones To Watch 2007

Ones To Watch 2007

It may come as a surprise with the World Cup being in full swing, but the county season's about to start. We did a list of players to watch during the 2006 season and we're doing another one this year.

There are many of the same names because we're long-termists here at King Cricket - if there is such a thing. Besides, some of last year's Ones To Watch clearly needed more than a season to make an impact.

One notable omission is Rob Key. We figure that it's pretty much taken as read that we'll be watching Rob, be it via a scorecard, binoculars or a series of high-definition cameras covertly installed around his home.

Will Jefferson
Nick Compton
Mark Davies
Matt Prior
Tom Smith
Bilal Shafayat
James Benning
Stuart Broad
Adil Rashid