Sussex Looks to Youth for CT20

A growing injury list is rarely considered a boon at professional sports teams. However, the absence of several first-teamers from the Sussex Sharks squad could yet prove beneficial to the side’s upcoming County Championship campaign, by allowing younger players to break into the team.

Sussex are currently without England favourites, Matt Prior and Monty Panesar, for their pre-season tour of the Caribbean, in addition to 26-year-old all-rounder, Luke Wright. Murray Goodwin, of Zimbabwe, and Irish veteran, Ed Joyce, were also left at the bus stop, back in the South East.

The development, while awkward for a team aspiring to victory in the Caribbean Twenty20 (CT20), has allowed for some experimentation, with regards to the make-up of the Sharks’ squad. Sussex have selected six youngsters, aged 20-24, in the 13-man team for this month’s limited overs event. Anyone planning to bet on cricket online should remember this.

Heading the list of new arrivals is Matt Machan, 20. The southpaw batsman made his debut for Sussex in May 2010, against Cambridge. Machan, who has a batting average of 45.25, has enjoyed limited success at the crease, since then, playing in just three first-class fixtures for his club.

The youngster will be joined in the CT20 by fellow ‘up-and-comers’, Will Beer and Will Adkin. The Sharks’ ranks will be bolstered with a number of seasoned players, namely, Chris Nash, Amjad Khan, and Sussex’s captain, Michael Yardy. The squad is certainly one of the more unusual teams in the Sharks’ recent history.

Sussex will kick-off their CT20 campaign against the Netherlands, on Tuesday, a clash that will be followed by fixtures against Jamaica, Barbados, and newly-founded side, Combined Campuses and Colleges. Also involved are Canada, Guyana, the Leeward Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Windward Islands.