An eventful if erratic season for Brez. In Yorkshire colours he had his least productive summer for a number of years, yet still managed a Test debut, a regular place in the England ODI team and his best ever one day innings in an ICC Champions Trophy semi-final. All that, and without him looking out of the window during YCCC media training the ECB would be without an official policy on twitter; just think how much that’s enriched humanity.

Much of his season was fashioned by the caprices of the England selectors. Initially getting picked for the West Indies Test series on the basis of good form in a couple of Friends Provident games, combined with the pre-conceived notion he was some kind of Northern all-rounder back-up for the injured Flintoff. Although given how much he was bowled during the Lords Test of that series you wonder if Andrew Strauss thought Flintoff actually had been picked and Bresnan was merely fulfilling 12^th man duties. Later in the summer international calls came again for England Lions and the Bataan Death March of ODI series that was Australia in September. But this time form leading up to the selections was even sketchier.

For in truth, Tim’s returns for Yorkshire this year have been disappointing. A batting average over 30, a high score of 97 and several other useful cameos is a decent return for a county number 8. But we know that Bresnan is a better player than that now. There’s no reason why the form of 2007, which saw him score three first class centuries, can’t be reproduced on a more regular basis.

Similarly it was only during the final four championship games with us that he started to take wickets on a regular basis – 14 @ 26.6 – before that they where rarer than hens teeth, with just ten from the first 6 matches. There where mitigating circumstances: flat pitches, the dropped catches suffered by the entire attack, as well as the suspicion that Deon Kruis had bequeathed his bowling (bad) luck as a retirement gift – how many times did we see a decent spell result in ball beating bat rather than take the edge? But even so, the performances by Shahzad after he took over the new ball from Bresnan suggest that after years of waiting to open Yorkshire’s bowling he may have been overtaken in the pecking order for next season.

Perhaps I’m being a little harsh to expect so much, but Bresnan is now an experienced and talented player who’s beginning to reap the rewards of international recognition. It’s time he started to put in match winning performances on a consistent basis at domestic level.

Championship – 10 matches, 372 runs @ 31.00, 24 wickets @ 37.87

Friends Provident – 2 matches, 2 runs @ 1.00, 7 wickets @ 9.00

Twenty/20 Cup – 6 matches, 38 runs @ 12.66, 7 wickets @ 22.42

Pro40 – 4 matches, 29 runs @ 9.66, 3 wickets @ 58.66

(Bresnan photo: by kind permission, Dave Morton)