Injury crisis could mean debuts for young guns
DURHAM have so many injuries at the moment, Paul Collingwood jokes that picking the team to face Sussex tomorrow will just be a case of counting which players are still fit when the week’s final training session ends.
At the Riverside injuries, like the departures of key players, are just seen as an opportunity for someone else.
With Michael Richardson injuring his groin in Tuesday’s One-Day Cup defeat to Lancashire and Jack Burnham still not fit after breaking his thumb last month, Cameron Steel and Gareth Harte could make County Championship debuts when Durham get back to four-day cricket this weekend.
“I guess the phase we’re in now as a club after losing Rocky (Mark Stoneman) and Scotty Borthwick (both joined Surrey in the winter), you’ve got to give opportunities to the next generation and give them time to gain that experience and have that exposure to pressure situations so they can be a lot more consistent,” says Collingwood, still going strong even though he turns 41 next Friday.
“That’s the period we’re in now where we want performances, we want to win games, but we also have to make sure we bed these players in.
“It’s amazing how quickly some of these guys can step up and put those big performances in.
“We’re starting to see some of these players win games for Durham, which is crucial. It’s great for the future of the club that these guys get exposure. They’re good characters as well, which is crucial for the dressing room. “There’s a lot of good stuff coming out of the dressing room and I think Clarky’s results and performances in the one-day stuff will have given him a lot of confidence moving to the red-ball format of the game. “A lot of these guys have got the skills and the ability but a lot of it is the mental side – can they do it at this level? Once you get that first hundred under the belt and all these type of things it’s a huge tick in the box to have the confidence you can do it time and again.” All-rounder James Weighell could also make his first four-day appearance this season after impressing in the 50-over game.
Durham had the third best record in the One-Day Cup’s northern group with three teams progressing to the knockout stages, but the twopoint penalty they were handed for financial mismanagement in the winter saw them miss out.
“I thought we actually played some very good one-day cricket, probably better than people expected,” says Collingwood, still one of the county’s star performers.
“The effort was there and there were some amazing performances but it just wasn’t to be. Sometimes things are meant to happen and to lose out by two points ... but we move on to our next challenge.”
Weighell and batsman Graham Clark were two of the players to thrive when asked to take on greater responsibility. “It’s extra pressure but it’s also allowing the player to flourish,” argues Collingwood. “It’s the management giving confidence to the player by saying, ‘You can do this.’
”Sometimes it’s forced upon us but in the end it’s not a bad thing.
“You’ve also got to be quite patient because you’re not going to get the consistency from a young player that you’re going to get from an experienced player. You’ve got to wait for these guys to keep developing and they seem to be doing that pretty well.
“James Weighell has done really well taking a lot of wickets in the one-day form. He’s still not the finished article but you can see that he’s learning every game.