New player, new captain
Posted by Neville Smeda on April 6, 2009
There have been some changes to the setup at the T&N Crusaders Cricket Club over the weekend. The first is the purchase of teenaged fast bowler, Mike Legg, from ShangerRatsXI in Australia. He is a 19-year old right-arm fast/medium bowler. In 9 first-class matches he has taken 32 wickets with a best of 6/5. His one-day record is as impressive with 12 wickets at 20.17 in 10 matches, with a best of 3/16. He is scheduled to play his first match for the Crusaders 2nd XI on Sunday against the Nashua Titans.
In other news, Matt O’Shea has been named as the captain for all Crusaders first-class matches for the remainder of the season. O’Shea’s wealth of cricket knowledge and experience has given Michael Prince the option of focusing his captaincy on the limited-overs format. Prince, who had hoped to relinquish captaincy at the beginning of this season, agreed to stay on for one more season but hopes to be able to just play cricket rather than having captaincy on his plate too.
Spin-vetaran Chris Kotzo commented on the change, “What is exciting about this is that you have two excellent cricket minds on the field at all times and they will consult with each other on all decisions no matter which format it is, which can only give you a winning combination. I think where Michael was struggling for a while is that he didn’t have anybody else really to turn to. Graeme Jeremy was his vice-captain last season, but was also only 18 so was not able to provide that maturity in decision-making. Matt and Michael not only make an excellent leadership team together, but you can see how well they bat together at the top of the order. The Crusaders are in for some positive times in the near future”.
