The top order's reluctance to fire in unison was summed up by the club being one of only three counties not to have reached 475 by the start of August. So there was extra reason to be grateful for Craig Spearman’s renewed rude health and Hamish Marshall’s return to full spruceness.

Especially relieved was Mark Alleyne, who sees more in the hirsute New Zealander than a broad array of shots and a penchant for rapid progress. Indeed, the head coach curses Marshall’s absence from the Twenty20 until the quarter-final defeat by Surrey, by when he was still rusty. “He has been really unlucky, getting over his side problem, then breaking a thumb fielding in the gully against Leicestershire, which ruled him out of the group phase, where he
would have been a great foil to Spearman and [Ian] Harvey because he’s so good at manipulating the strike. He’s much more than a big hitter.”

The Wisden Cricketer, Rob Steen