County Cricket: Adieu to Whiteley

So it’s a premature farewell to Ross Whiteley, who has joined Worcestershire for the remainder of the season and until the end of 2016.

There will undoubtedly be rumours and stories flying around, so I think that I will do my best to unpick the story as I see it at this early stage and perhaps nip some of the more scurrilous in the bud.

As the club site states, Whiteley wanted to spend the winter in Australia, which was at odds with the club’s plans for him. I know the lad met a girl out there when he has been out in previous winters, as he told me as much back in September in the post-title excitement at the County Ground. On that basis, I can understand his desire to go back out there this winter.

To be fair to the club, his employers, his bargaining position was far from strong, after a season in which form and fitness has proved elusive with bat and ball. Derbyshire, quite rightly in my opinion, presumably wanted him to stay home and work on his game with the club coaches, in an attempt to rediscover the form that made him look a genuine talent a couple of summers back.

Realistically, there would have been only one way out of such an impasse. Whiteley wanted out and a place with a club who were willing to let him go to Australia this winter. Worcestershire were the interested party and that’s how we got to the situation that broke today.

I don’t blame the club one bit. As the employer, they were entitled to request the player stayed home and worked on his game. If the employee was digging his heels in, as happens in different working environments, there could only really be one solution and that was a parting of the ways.

Equally it is hard to blame the player, because that’s what happens between men and women when things get serious. I might be getting old, but romance does funny things to people…equally he may have wanted to work on his game there, but if that didn’t suit the club, they pay the wages and the piper calls the tune.

It is a shame for the club though, They spent time on the player’s development and have lost him before he reached full maturity, if he ever does. Chris Grant, in particular, was very fair with the lad and put him on a good contract when he had previously only been on a summer deal. It is not the ending that anyone would have chosen to the story and there’s no denying that.

That’s my take on things and I don’t think it too wide of the mark. Ross Whiteley may go on to be a very good county cricketer and emulate Ian Blackwell in developing beyond that level. By the same token he might never realise that early potential, where he could swing the ball and bat with equal gusto. Few will forget his assault on Hampshire that rushed us to victory last September, his brilliant fielding nor his handy bowling. Only the churlish will fail to wish him well. He’s a nice lad and a good cricketer.

It’s just a shame that things turned out this way. Yet one man’s departure is another’s opportunity.

In Alex Hughes, I think we have a ready-made replacement.