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Rikki Clarke (Surrey)
Clarke's heady rise from the fringes of Surrey's First XI to the England oneday
team and ultimately the Test side was typical of the new English fashion
for fast-tracking. At the age of 21 and with just 11 Championship games on
his CV, he was picked against Pakistan and duly took a wicket with his first
ball. The delivery, however, was a long-hop, and the feeling lingered that his
bowling was more rickety fourth-change than genuine all-rounder - though he
had some interesting changes of pace and in Sri Lanka got significantly quicker. But his batting was a different matter - a half-century in his second Test at Chittagong was full of maturity - and his fielding at backward point superb.
2003: 2 Tests: 96 runs @ 32.00; 4 wickets @ 15.00.
11 ODI: 66 runs @ 13.20; 7 wickets @ 31.42.
Paul Collingwood (Durham)
For someone who missed almost all of the English summer with a dislocated
shoulder, the rest of Collingwood's year could scarcely have gone any better.
He was one of the few stars of England's World Cup campaign, and come the winter was a senior player in the one-day side, having been given the crucial position of No. 4 - the finisher's natural habitat. His status as teacher's pet was such that he was awarded a 12-month central contract before his first Test cap. He showed why with two gutsy performances against Muralitharan
in Sri Lanka. With his superb fielding under the helmet, the conviction that he was made of the right stuff was growing.
2003: 2 Tests: 89 runs @ 22.25; no wickets for 37.
15 ODI: 411 runs @ 45.66; 3 wickets @ 24.00.
John Crawley (Hampshire)
Crawley was dumped after the Ashes tour despite averaging 47.10 in the
eight Tests since his recall the previous summer. But his contribution to
England's victory at Sydney - a painstaking unbeaten 35 off 142 balls in
the first innings - summed up his problem: there was a hare in there
somewhere, as county bowlers would confirm, but at Test level the angstridden
tortoise won out.
2003: 1 Test: 43 runs @ 43.00.
Richard Dawson (Yorkshire)
Combative at county level, off-spinner Dawson was eaten alive in the big,
bad, real world of Australia. Having started that series with purpose and
gumption, he looked tired and out of his depth by the end - on a Sydney pitch usually tailor-made for spinners he took just one for 113, and his main
contribution was to bowl the final over of the second day, when Steve Waugh
completed his unforgettable hundred. By the end of the summer, Dawson
was struggling to make the Yorkshire team. A bowling arm that went beyond
perpendicular, making his head fall away, seemed to be creating technical
problems all round.
2003: 1 Test: 14 runs @ 7.00; 1 wicket @ 113.00
Ashley Giles (Warwickshire)
Giles was called many things in 2003: the King of Spain (there was a rogue
"A" on some county mugs), a wheelie-bin, useless, and finally heroic, after
his batting saved the First Test in Sri Lanka. Giles got his first Test fifties
against Zimbabwe, but in his day job he laboured badly. He used the
Bangladesh tour to remodel his action, trying to get closer to the stumps
with a straighter approach and, after Chittagong, he had taken just ten wickets
in eight Tests. Then, in Sri Lanka, he took 16 in the next two; his series tally of 18 was double England's next best, his year's tally second only to Harmison and, whether people liked it or not, Giles ended 2003 once again England's undisputed No. 1 spinner. It may be that his new action was most effective not in improving Giles's bowling, but in improving his own belief in it.
2003: 11 Tests: 317 runs @ 22.64; 28 wickets @ 43.57.
13 ODI: 64 runs @ 16.00; 9 wickets @ 40.00.
Darren Gough (Yorkshire)
After a winter's recuperation, Gough was back to his old, ebullient self in
the one-day game: grinning, experimenting, grabbing wickets - and doing
it all at less than four an over. His performance in the final of the NatWest
Series was one of his very best. But his return to the Test side, after two
years of injury and self-imposed exile, was a disaster. Gough was made to
look pedestrian by Graeme Smith, took a solitary wicket in two games, and
duly announced his retirement at Test level. He was, however, still available
for one-day cricket and was shocked by his winter omission. The selectors
assured him that his career was not necessarily over, but the boyish grin
was replaced by the scowl of a fading veteran. Maybe his move to Essex
for 2004 will be rejuvenating.
2003: 2 Tests: 49 runs @ 16.33; 1 wicket @ 215.00.
10 ODI: 14 runs, not out; 14 wickets @ 22.42.
Steve Harmison (Durham)
England's leading Test wicket-taker of 2003 had an enigmatic year. When
he was good, he was very good, but searing spells were often sandwiched
by three or four anodyne ones. For someone rumoured to be resistant to
advice, however, Harmison seemed very responsive to the kick up the backside: after being dropped for the Fourth Test against South Africa at
Headingley, he stormed back at The Oval with the most significant spell of
his life. And then, far more paradoxically, a man labelled as both lazy and
a bad traveller saved England from disaster by taking nine wickets in extreme
conditions in Dhaka. Then, just as he was starting to seem indispensable,
he got injured again. Harmison began the year modestly, as a non-playing
member of the World Cup squad and a first-change who could not
consistently deploy all the tools at his disposal, although he did add a
spectacular final flourish to the inaugural Test on his home ground in Durham.
But, with an average of 13 against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh and 43 against
the rest, he finished 2003 with plenty to prove.
2003: 8 Tests: 64 runs @ 8.00; 31 wickets @ 24.25.
4 ODI: 7 runs @ 7.00; 1 wicket @ 162.00.