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Drought will help bowlers, says Salisbury
(Evening Standard Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)SURREY leg-spinner Ian Salisbury has greeted the recent drought with delight and believes it could help the county's bowlers fire them back into the first division of the County Championship.
India's wicket record holder Anil Kumble is arriving halfway through the season while left arm Nayan Doshi is improving each year and new coach Alan Butcher is very excited about 17-year-old off-spinner Simon King.
Salisbury, 36, had a poor season last year taking only seven championship wickets in four matches but he said: "It is great news. The drier the pitches, the better for us. I did a lot of work at home this winter.
"I had a problem with my knee and it was making my bowling arm lower and I went to Lougborough under Peter Moores to build the knee up. It seems to have worked and I feel great."
Butcher added: "Dry pitches will help us and we have got some quality spinners. At Hove this week Salisbury bowled better than I have seen for four years and he is looking in very good shape.
"And I have high hopes of Simon King who is at school at John Fisher.
He went with us to Mumbai in the winter and Harbhajan Singh reckoned he will finish up playing for England.
"Simon is very mature for his age, has a good loop and bowls a doosra with a straight arm. He is a bit too early to come into the first team yet but if there is an opportunity later I would put him in. There aren't many of that type."
Surrey have asked the England and Wales Cricket Board for permission to move to another wicket for the Derbyshire game starting on Wednesday, the 2000th first-class match to be played at The Oval. The game was scheduled to be played at Derby but their ground is waterlogged. The original wicket is in line with the controversial screen in front of the new press box and with a game going on it would hold up its installation.
Chairman David Stewart said: "Hopefully we have a solution and the work should be finished in time for the one-day international against Sri Lanka on 20 June."
Surrey want to stage their match against Durham University on the same pitch to be used by Derbyshire and therefore need ECB approval.
One player whose early season preparations have been ruined is Mark Ramprakash, who has lost his job as vice-captain to Rikki Clarke as well as going down with food poisoning.
It is ironic then that one of Surrey's new sponsors is The Exotic Food Specialists - Bombay Foods, but a spokesman insisted that Ramprakash's problems were "caused by eating salmon".
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