Neil McKenzie joins Hampshire

My take is that Neil McKenzie is a brilliant signing - possibly the best of Hampshire's signings that include Kabir Ali, Simon Jones, Shahid Afridi and Ajantha Mendis. McKenzie will play the whole season (assuming South Africa don't have a change of heart) and - while it's difficult to know from the outside - my perception is that he's a really hard grafter and Hampshire need that grit to go alongside their big name stars - especially in the 4-day game. Not that McKenzie is exactly a little name - he just won't attract quite the attention of some of the others.

I reserve the right to retract the above if he averages 10 half way through the season!! It will be very interesting to see how Dimi Mascarenhas does trying to handle his team of highly paid stars....I was quite keen on giving him the England Twenty20 captaincy when Paul Collingwood originally resigned in 2008 but this will be a real test for him....