It’s been four months since I plucked these eleven young cricketers from various levels of obscurity and cursed them with the tag ‘ones to watch’. How have they been getting on?
- Nasir Jamshed is on Pakistan’s probables list for the Champions Trophy, and made an unbeaten fifty against Bangladesh in the Asia Cup. He’s also earned the favour of Misbah-ul-haq, which should stand him in good stead for the future.
- Virat Kohli has also been included in his country’s probables for the Champions Trophy, and has been awarded the Border-Gavaskar scholarship which will allow him to train at Cricket Australia’s Centre of Excellence in Brisbane for six weeks.
- Tamim Iqbal is over in England at the moment with Bangladesh A, but there hasn’t been much news of him recently. Hopefully there will be more to report soon.
- Fawad Alam made some runs in the Asian Cup, but his bowling hasn’t been very good of late. He’s likely to struggle for inclusion in the Pakistan side whilst Afridi is around.
- Steve Davies scored 74 on Tuesday, and may still be under consideration by England’s selectors as a replacement for Tim Ambrose.
- Adil Rashid’s fine bowling in the Twenty20 Cup was ulitmately scuppered by his team-mate’s lack of registration. Not much hope of an England call-up unless Monty picks up an injury.
- Beau Casson hasn’t been included in Australia’s preliminary squad for the Champions Trophy, and opinion is still a bit divided on how special or ordinary he really is.
- Sulieman Benn has overcome the apparent West Indian anti-spin bias to show some promise whilst going for quite a lot of runs, but he needs to play more cricket against sides that aren’t Australia before he can be properly assessed.
- Tim Southee bowled quite well against England in the One-Day Series, and is still the most exciting young bowler in New Zealand.
- Ishant Sharma continues to take wickets, will soon be making an appearance in a Bollywood film, and is one of India’s most eligible bachelors.
- Mitchell Johnson has shown flashes of brilliance, but had an ultimately disappointing Test series against the West Indies. Another one who needs more top-level cricket before a verdict can be reached.
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Tamim……..surely is one of the most talented batsman of the future
[...] October 2, 2008 by A P Webster Virat Kohli has made 105 today against the touring Australians. I hope you were watching. [...]