`Pike' picking up

It is four summers since Paul Franks made his one-day international debut against West Indies at Trent Bridge and many are wondering what happened to the raw talent which saw the allrounder claim a World Cup winners' medal at U19 level, go on A tours to Zimbabwe, South Africa, New Zealand, Bangladesh and West Indies and be voted the Young Player of the Year by the Cricket Writers' club in 2000. Last season he slipped from 28th in the first-class bowling averages to 122nd with 25 wickets at 42.80 each, despite attending the Dennis Lillee coaching school in Chennai for three successive years.

A genial, pleasant lad, still only 25, Franks has had injury problems which have been compounded by his impulsiveness. Clive Rice, when coach at Trent Bridge, said "he always wants to do everything at 100 miles an hour," and it is not for nothing he is known to his team-mates as `Pike'. There are signs this season that he is losing the `stupid boy' tag with the wickets coming at a much more reasonable price - the result of a winter in New Zealand and a more considered approach. In two seasons after winning his county cap in 1999 he had 105 wickets at 26.66 and appears to have regained that sort of form as his county, relegated last summer, leaped to the top of Division Two.

Moment of the month David Hussey's electric form.