[onemorerun]

Levi has a new one year contract (see other topic), Thurston has been given a contract and Faheem Ashraf is coming back for all competitions (for start of season).

It's been suggested elsewhere we still need batting recruits. Apparently newly-relegated Division 2 side Notts have a player called Duckett who wants to play in Division 1.

[Shortlegs]

I think Levi has been lucky to get a new contract while Keogh's reasonable (but by no means outstanding) season this year has got him another 2-year contract. However, I hope this does not mean that Ripley is counting on these two batsmen to be mainstays of the red ball team in Division 1. Neither have proved to be consistent big scorers in Div 2 so what evidence is there to believe they will do better against better quality bowling attacks in Div 1?

If these two are squad players to compete for first team places, then fair enough, but I think we need at least one (and possibly two) top quality proven red-ball batsmen, apart from Ashraf, to be confident of being a decent batting unit in Div 1. The only batsmen I'm really confident of at that level from our squad at the moment are Vasconcelos and Rossington.