Cook has recently said that both Ekansh Singh and Ben Dawkins will get opportunities in the 50 over comp. That means that the existing contract of Ekansh must run to the end of 2025 and that Ben Dawkins is going to sign in the next week (he's 18 tomorrow) a rookie contract. I've updated those along with the recent announcements:
Arafat Bhuiyan 2024 Released
Ben Compton 2025
Nathan Gilchrist 2024
Fred Klaassen 2024
Marcus O'Riordan 2024
Hamid Qadri 2024 Released
Matt Quinn 2025
Grant Stewart 2024
Wes Agar 2025 (overseas)
Daniel Bell-Drummond 2025
Sam Billings 2025 (white ball)
Michael Cohen 2025
Zak Crawley 2025
Joe Denly 2025
Joey Evison 2025
Harry Finch 2025
George Garrett 2025
Tawanda Muyeye 2025
Jas Singh 2025
Ekansh Singh 2025
Ben Dawkins 2025
Jaydn Denly 2026
Jack Leaning 2026
Matt Parkinson 2026
Chris Benjamin 2027
Of those remaining contracts expiring in 2024 I'd only offer terms to Gilchrist and Stewart if it was up to me.
Klaassen was a useful member of the Blast team in previous seasons, and I presume would be a white ball contract anyway. .
Cook has recently said that both Ekansh Singh and Ben Dawkins will get opportunities in the 50 over comp. That means that the existing contract of Ekansh must run to the end of 2025 and that Ben Dawkins is going to sign in the next week (he's 18 tomorrow) a rookie contract. I've updated those along with the recent announcements:
Arafat Bhuiyan 2024 Released
Ben Compton 2025
Nathan Gilchrist 2024
Fred Klaassen 2024
Marcus O'Riordan 2024
Hamid Qadri 2024 Released
Matt Quinn 2025
Grant Stewart 2024
Wes Agar 2025 (overseas)
Daniel Bell-Drummond 2025
Sam Billings 2025 (white ball)
Michael Cohen 2025
Zak Crawley 2025
Joe Denly 2025
Joey Evison 2025
Harry Finch 2025
George Garrett 2025
Tawanda Muyeye 2025
Jas Singh 2025
Ekansh Singh 2025
Ben Dawkins 2025
Jaydn Denly 2026
Jack Leaning 2026
Matt Parkinson 2026
Chris Benjamin 2027
Of those remaining contracts expiring in 2024 I'd only offer terms to Gilchrist and Stewart if it was up to me.
Klaassen was a useful member of the Blast team in previous seasons, and I presume would be a white ball contract anyway.
Cook has recently said that both Ekansh Singh and Ben Dawkins will get opportunities in the 50 over comp. That means that the existing contract of Ekansh must run to the end of 2025 and that Ben Dawkins is going to sign in the next week (he's 18 tomorrow) a rookie contract. I've updated those along with the recent announcements:
Arafat Bhuiyan 2024 Released
Ben Compton 2025
Nathan Gilchrist 2024
Fred Klaassen 2024
Marcus O'Riordan 2024
Hamid Qadri 2024 Released
Matt Quinn 2025
Grant Stewart 2024
Wes Agar 2025 (overseas)
Daniel Bell-Drummond 2025
Sam Billings 2025 (white ball)
Michael Cohen 2025
Zak Crawley 2025
Joe Denly 2025
Joey Evison 2025
Harry Finch 2025
George Garrett 2025
Tawanda Muyeye 2025
Jas Singh 2025
Ekansh Singh 2025
Ben Dawkins 2025
Jaydn Denly 2026
Jack Leaning 2026
Matt Parkinson 2026
Chris Benjamin 2027
Of those remaining contracts expiring in 2024 I'd only offer terms to Gilchrist and Stewart if it was up to me.
Klaassen was a useful member of the Blast team in previous seasons, and I presume would be a white ball contract anyway..
Couple of missed things yesterday as the structure for the women’s side of the club has been changed but I’m at work so don’t have the links!
Main thing I came to post was that it looks like Gilchrist has signed a new deal
Lucy Arman is the new Head of Women's Cricket with former Kent player, James Hockley as Head Coach and Geraint Jones, of England and Kent fame as Assistant.
Gilchrist is the latest to sign a new contract to the end of 2025 although the announcement says "at least" presumably leaving it open for him to extend or not. The vast majority of our squad have contracts that finish next season so a lot will revolve on how we do in the year to come.
Darren Lehmann has been appointed Northants coach on a two year contract. An opportunity missed by us and if history tells a story then, unlike Lehmann, we will probably appoint someone that already has connections with Kent.
I suspect that you are correct so far as ponds are concerned. The other massive benefit, apart from being a formidable player for over a decade in the CC for Yorkshire (a friend of mine, Gavin Hamilton, told me that he was the best player he ever played with) and a top coach to boot, is that he will have have untold contacts in the game including any potential overseas Aussies that might not ordinarily be influenced to join us.
I suspect that you are correct so far as ponds are concerned. The other massive benefit, apart from being a formidable player for over a decade in the CC for Yorkshire (a friend of mine, Gavin Hamilton, told me that he was the best player he ever played with) and a top coach to boot, is that he will have have untold contacts in the game including any potential overseas Aussies that might not ordinarily be influenced to join us.
yeah, Jamie has nothing but praise for him and his coaching from when he went to the Darren Lehmann academy for 6 months
I suspect that you are correct so far as ponds are concerned. The other massive benefit, apart from being a formidable player for over a decade in the CC for Yorkshire (a friend of mine, Gavin Hamilton, told me that he was the best player he ever played with) and a top coach to boot, is that he will have have untold contacts in the game including any potential overseas Aussies that might not ordinarily be influenced to join us.
yeah, Jamie has nothing but praise for him and his coaching from when he went to the Darren Lehmann academy for 6 months
Whereas Seb only saw him the once when he was there two years ago as he was based in Queensland and only flew into Adelaide to see his new grandchild. A shame but Seb did have Greg Blewett as batting coach at the DLCA and some bloke called Carl Hooper at his club so probably has no right to complain about that.
I suspect that you are correct so far as ponds are concerned. The other massive benefit, apart from being a formidable player for over a decade in the CC for Yorkshire (a friend of mine, Gavin Hamilton, told me that he was the best player he ever played with) and a top coach to boot, is that he will have have untold contacts in the game including any potential overseas Aussies that might not ordinarily be influenced to join us.
yeah, Jamie has nothing but praise for him and his coaching from when he went to the Darren Lehmann academy for 6 months
Whereas Seb only saw him the once when he was there two years ago as he was based in Queensland and only flew into Adelaide to see his new grandchild. A shame but Seb did have Greg Blewett as batting coach at the DLCA and some bloke called Carl Hooper at his club so probably has no right to complain about that.
'Former Leicestershire all rounder' which is true but he spent longer at Kent and took all but 6 of his first class wickets at Kent hence Kent is where he became an all rounder.
Academic though as he is now a coach. Shame Kent haven't taken him on but there we are.
According to an interview on the radio, Simon Cook has said that the advert for the new coach has only just gone out and little further recruitment will take place until that person is in place which is not expected until January/February although negotiations are under way to bring back Tom Rogers for the Blast. Cook also reiterated that Kent will be concentrating on white ball.
I can't find any reference to Grant Stewart signing a contract beyond 2024 but Kent, in their newsfeed, have announced that "Kent's Grant Stewart" is in Italy's team to play Tanzania. So he either has signed an extension or the two parties are still in negotiation. The other two players with question marks are Klaassen and O'Riordan.
Another spinner has been discarded by Surrey - following on from Bashir and Moriarty, it's now Amar Virdi's turn to be shown the door. Now that Qadri has left, we don't actually have second frontline twirler (O'Riordan may not still be with us and has rarely proved a success with the ball and Jaydn is too raw to be considered that as yet). I'm not sure it would be to Virdi's advantage to come to us, though, as he isn't certain to displace Parkinson as our number one and the chances of us regularly playing both, especially as neither can bat in the top 8, are likely to be minimal. He might well return to Worcestershire where he enjoyed a successful loan last season.
That is the problem of being a non-batting spinner these days. Unless you are the number one then the chances of carving out a career, unless you are a batter too, are extremely limited. As far as I can work out, these are the leading spinning wicket takers in the CC for each and every county:
Derbyshire - Alex Thompson (24) Durham - Callum Parkinson (30) Essex - Simon Harmer* (45) Glamorgan - Mason Crane (29) Gloucestershire - Zafar Gohar* (19) Hampshire - Liam Dawson (54) Kent - Matt Parkinson (36) Lancashire - Nathan Lyon* (26) Leicestershire - Rehan Ahmed (13) Middlesex - Luke Hollman (30) Northants - Rob Keogh (23) Nottinghamshire - Farhan Ahmed (22) Somerset - Jack Leach (45) Surrey - Cameron Steel (23) Sussex - Jack Carson (50) Warwickshire - Danny Briggs (8) Worcestershire - Amar Virdi (14) Yorkshire - Dom Bess (14)
* Non-England qualified
I'm sure I must be missing a spinner at Warwickshire because I can't quite believe that stat for Warwickshire. This is the county that currently has FOUR England spinners on their books and yet they managed just 20 wickets between them - in addition to Briggs (8 @ 87.25) they have Moeen Ali (doesn't play red ball now), Jacob Bethell (7 @ 69.42) and Dan Mousley (5 @ 21.80).
One interesting aspect is that there are two sets of brothers that feature as leading spinning wicket takers for four different counties - the Parkinson twins (who bowl with opposite arms) and the Ahmed brothers.
Whatever way you look at it, the stats, from an ability to produce England spinners perspective, do not make pretty reading. In fact, I really wouldn't be surprised if we found out that this season was the lowest (apart from covid year of course) for the number of wickets taken by spinners in the CC. Gone are the days when a county would have two front line spinners such as Emburey and Edmonds at Middlesex - the small matter of 2,854 career First Class wickets between them!!!
I just had a quick glance at the Warwickshire squad and there's not a missing spinner , looks like they were a very seam heavy attack with the likes of Oliver Hannon-Dalby and Chris Rushworth.
Interesting the 2 spinners with 50 wickets are nowhere on the England front. Carson is spending the winter playing Grade Cricket in Australia and I assume Dawson has SA20 commitments.
I just had a quick glance at the Warwickshire squad and there's not a missing spinner , looks like they were a very seam heavy attack with the likes of Oliver Hannon-Dalby and Chris Rushworth.
Interesting the 2 spinners with 50 wickets are nowhere on the England front. Carson is spending the winter playing Grade Cricket in Australia and I assume Dawson has SA20 commitments.
Carson is playing for West Torrens (the same club as Spencer Johnson plays for and the club that Seb played against two years ago when Johnson and Dan Mousley were in opposition) in the South Australia Grade 1 League. Other English players currently are Luke Hollman (for Tea Tree Gully who are captained and coached by Joe Gatting), who is mentioned above for taking 30 wickets for Middlesex and his team mate and fellow spinner, Josh de Caires (Sturt). So that's three young English spinners. They are joined by Worcestershire's Henry Cullen (Woodville) and Jas Singh (Adelaide University) of Kent.
Coco Streets has been named as Kent Women's Vice Captain. Seb played from the age of 11 to 18 at Kent with Coco's brother, Ollie. Both are lovely people. Unfortunately, now that we've been designated "Tier 2" status, we have lost and are going to continue to lose a lot of our better girls to the likes of Surrey. That, in turn, will impact upon the possibility of us ever becoming a Tier 1 county. That is the model that the ECB have introduced and one that they are seeking to replicate in the men's game.
To demonstrate how successful the Kent pathway has been in producing players and how those better players have been forced to move on because of the system imposed by the ECB, the following players are now at Surrey:
Tash Farrant Kalea Moore Alexa Stonehouse Alice Davidson-Richards Jemima Spence Phoebe Franklin Ryana MacDonald- Gay Tilly Corteen-Coleman
That's 8 of Surrey's on site 2025 squad of 21 that came through the Kent system. Kent's website currently shows just two players in the Women's squad (as opposed to 22 in the men's) suggesting that others are moving on. Darcey Carter, who played for Scotland in the recent World Cup, could well be another to add to the above list.
With much more money given to Tier 1 counties, playing at a higher level and it being a stepping stone to The Hundred too, there is no incentive whatsoever to stay at Kent if you are good enough and want to progress.
To demonstrate how successful the Kent pathway has been in producing players and how those better players have been forced to move on because of the system imposed by the ECB, the following players are now at Surrey:
Tash Farrant Kalea Moore Alexa Stonehouse Alice Davidson-Richards Jemima Spence Phoebe Franklin Ryana MacDonald- Gay Tilly Corteen-Coleman
That's 8 of Surrey's on site 2025 squad of 21 that came through the Kent system. Kent's website currently shows just two players in the Women's squad (as opposed to 22 in the men's) suggesting that others are moving on. Darcey Carter, who played for Scotland in the recent World Cup, could well be another to add to the above list.
With much more money given to Tier 1 counties, playing at a higher level and it being a stepping stone to The Hundred too, there is no incentive whatsoever to stay at Kent if you are good enough and want to progress.
Amy Gordon signed from Surrey - they take eight of ours and have given us one in return though even that is subject to ECB approval.
Comments
Main thing I came to post was that it looks like Gilchrist has signed a new deal
Gilchrist is the latest to sign a new contract to the end of 2025 although the announcement says "at least" presumably leaving it open for him to extend or not. The vast majority of our squad have contracts that finish next season so a lot will revolve on how we do in the year to come.
wonder if we are even fishing in the same pond
https://essexcricket.org.uk/2024/10/30/essex-women-new-backroom-coaching-structure-confirmed/
Academic though as he is now a coach. Shame Kent haven't taken him on but there we are.
That is the problem of being a non-batting spinner these days. Unless you are the number one then the chances of carving out a career, unless you are a batter too, are extremely limited. As far as I can work out, these are the leading spinning wicket takers in the CC for each and every county:
Derbyshire - Alex Thompson (24)
Durham - Callum Parkinson (30)
Essex - Simon Harmer* (45)
Glamorgan - Mason Crane (29)
Gloucestershire - Zafar Gohar* (19)
Hampshire - Liam Dawson (54)
Kent - Matt Parkinson (36)
Lancashire - Nathan Lyon* (26)
Leicestershire - Rehan Ahmed (13)
Middlesex - Luke Hollman (30)
Northants - Rob Keogh (23)
Nottinghamshire - Farhan Ahmed (22)
Somerset - Jack Leach (45)
Surrey - Cameron Steel (23)
Sussex - Jack Carson (50)
Warwickshire - Danny Briggs (8)
Worcestershire - Amar Virdi (14)
Yorkshire - Dom Bess (14)
* Non-England qualified
I'm sure I must be missing a spinner at Warwickshire because I can't quite believe that stat for Warwickshire. This is the county that currently has FOUR England spinners on their books and yet they managed just 20 wickets between them - in addition to Briggs (8 @ 87.25) they have Moeen Ali (doesn't play red ball now), Jacob Bethell (7 @ 69.42) and Dan Mousley (5 @ 21.80).
One interesting aspect is that there are two sets of brothers that feature as leading spinning wicket takers for four different counties - the Parkinson twins (who bowl with opposite arms) and the Ahmed brothers.
Whatever way you look at it, the stats, from an ability to produce England spinners perspective, do not make pretty reading. In fact, I really wouldn't be surprised if we found out that this season was the lowest (apart from covid year of course) for the number of wickets taken by spinners in the CC. Gone are the days when a county would have two front line spinners such as Emburey and Edmonds at Middlesex - the small matter of 2,854 career First Class wickets between them!!!
Interesting the 2 spinners with 50 wickets are nowhere on the England front. Carson is spending the winter playing Grade Cricket in Australia and I assume Dawson has SA20 commitments.
Tash Farrant
Kalea Moore
Alexa Stonehouse
Alice Davidson-Richards
Jemima Spence
Phoebe Franklin
Ryana MacDonald- Gay
Tilly Corteen-Coleman
That's 8 of Surrey's on site 2025 squad of 21 that came through the Kent system. Kent's website currently shows just two players in the Women's squad (as opposed to 22 in the men's) suggesting that others are moving on. Darcey Carter, who played for Scotland in the recent World Cup, could well be another to add to the above list.
With much more money given to Tier 1 counties, playing at a higher level and it being a stepping stone to The Hundred too, there is no incentive whatsoever to stay at Kent if you are good enough and want to progress.
https://www.kentcricket.co.uk/news/amy-gordon-joins-kent-for-2025/