“Is Mark Wagh still injured?” was the most asked question around Edgbaston in the first month of the season. The answer was that the former Oxford University captain, included in England’s extended one-day squad only two years ago, had recovered from the knee injury that restricted him to a single Championship appearance in 2005 but had been banished to the 2nd XI.

The club gave Ian Westwood an extended run as Nick Knight’s opening partner but rejected Wagh’s request to be loaned out to another county. “Getting dropped isn’t something that has happened to me for a long time and it’s not something I’ve enjoyed,” Wagh says. “I know that I have no divine right to a first-team place just because I am a capped player. It’s made me take a hard look at my own game and I hope to come back a stronger person.”
Paul Bolton, The Wisden Cricketer