The Most Improved County Player of 2005

[Andy Mellon]

Well, this award is to shine the light on those lesser known players who enjoyed a fantastic 2005 after a poor 2004, or a disappointing career so far. Once again, the vote is only open for 21 days, and feel free to discuss the merits of the nominees on this thread.

[Rachael]

Does Alan Richardson have any really credible rival on that list? Will wait to see a case made for one of the others before voting.. but the guy went from being dumped by Warks to being a leading bowler in CC in one season!

[Andy Mellon]

Well, Richardson does have a very strong case. The only other contender I would say is Ali Cook. He went from an average of 29.89 with only 568 runs during 2004 (behind Paul Grayson, Aftab Habib - whose contract was terminated, James Foster and even Graham Napier) to 1,249 runs at 48.03 with 4 centuries in 2005. That's a damn good improvement! Richardson looks to have the stronger case, mainly because he had to cope with moving counties, and he didn't get the opportunity to play enough games in 2004

Richardson improved to take 57 wickets at 25.22 during 2005 from 6 wickets at 88.66 in 2004. But Richardson did only play 7 games in 2004, compared to 14 in 2005. Cook played 12 in both 2004 and 2005. Personally, I still think you are right that Richardson does deserve the award, but Cook has a decent shout - so maybe some the others do as well?

[greg]

i went for Cook as i thought he would struggle last season but got better.I always rated Richardson at Warwickshire and thought they were crazy to get rid of him so it did not surprise me to see him do so well.

[Teatime FatCat]

I went for Paul Weekes because I like his little beard - but also out of sympathy for him as I think he should have played many many ODI's for England as a batting off-spinner. A really solid, wasted talent in an era when we have put out some flimsy sides.

[Collyisamackem]

Can I nominate the entire Durham squad?

[The Phantom Ram]

Looking at this statistically I think Welch would be a front runner. In 2005 he averaged 31.46 with the bat compared to an career average of 23.14. He also took 60 wickets at 25.98 compared with a career record of 441 wickets at 31.37. Adding on top of this he scored a 100 and was only a declaration away from what would have been his 2nd century of season and it would have been the fastest century too (he only had 1 century prior to the start of this season.) He has also become the heartbeat of an otherwise poor Derby side