Professionals arrive for Chch season

Press, 6 October 1980, Page 30

Professionals arrive for Chch season

Three young English professionals arrived in Christchurch on Friday eager for another cricket season after a rather wet summer back home. One of them, Kevin James, a 19-year-old allrounder from Middlesex, is the first player to have been brought out by the Sydena ham club. He is a lefthanded batsman and a media m-pace left-arm bowler.

The others, Duncan Wild and Bob Carter, are both from Northamptonshire and will turn out for the St Albans club this summer. Wild, aged 18, is a left-hand bat and Carter, two years older, as a right hand batsman and a seam bowler. Both have mainly been second XI players, although Carter had quite a few games for the Northamptonshire first team during the last season. The pair had an unfortu-

nate start to their stay in New Zealand — most of their luggage has been lost in transit and this includes a cricket case each.

Most of James’s games in the last English season were with the Middlesex seconds, but he did have three games for the first team and picked up three for 20 in a threeday game against Oxford University. It was his first experience of a “full pro. season” and after playing every day the break of three or four weeks since the first class season ended has seemed a long time.

In spite of his youth James has already had two trips overseas. He went to Australia (with Carter as vice-captain) as a member of the England under-19 side and early this year was a team-mate of Wild in the Young England team that toured the West Indies. ’T've been pretty-lucky,” he said.