By Josh Cobb
T20 Captain
IT’S been a busy winter at The County Ground and we’ve made a few big signings that should make a big impact in 2020.
When it comes to signings, they don’t come much bigger than Kieron Pollard, in all senses of the word.
The 6ft4in Windies captain is the most experienced T20 player in the world and it’s really exciting to have a player with his quality joining the Steelbacks for the Vitality Blast. His stats are unbelievable, only fellow Windies player Chris Gayle has scored more runs than him in T20 cricket, so to have him with us is huge.
Pollard has scored 9,966 runs in T20 cricket at a strike rate of over 150 and hit 49 half centuries, which is some going in T20 cricket, he’ll add genuine firepower to our middle order.
We’re also welcoming Paul Stirling for the Vitality Blast, he’ll play the games Pollard isn’t available for. He was the leading run-scorer in T20 International cricket in 2019 and will join us for the start and end of the group stages, as well as the finals if we qualify.
Stirlo’s such a valuable player to have in your side in the shorter form, he’s got experience around the world and especially in England so I’m looking forward to him hopefully getting us off to a few flying starts.
There’s a chance many of you won’t have heard of our other signing before, but trust me, Brandon Glover is a name you’ll want to remember. He’s a young and genuinely quick bowler who represents the Netherlands in international cricket. He was the leading wicket-taker in T20 Internationals last year, so completes the set with Stirling perfectly.
Brandon’s joined us for three years in all formats and comes with some heavy praise from our new bowling coach Chris Liddle, who worked with him at the Netherlands. He’s also been friends with Ricardo Vasconcelos since they were kids and Ricardo was very keen to get him into our setup.
The 2020 squad is the biggest we’ve had in recent memory and it’s a credit to the work and backing we’ve had from the board this year. The boys have been hard at work since before Christmas and preseason just keeps ramping up as we approach our first game against Leeds/Bradford MCCU on the 13 April.