club captain joe leach says opening batsman hamish rutherford will help to give worcestershire the consistency they are looking for in red ball cricket when he returns to New Road in 2020
rutherford had two short stints with the county in 2019 and topped their batting averages in the specsavers county championship as well as making an impact in the royal london one-day cup with two centuries.
now the new zealander, who plays for otago during the domestic season back home, is available for the whole of next summer in all formats of the game.
leach said: “he had a really good impact on the dressing room – as all of these overseas (signings) tend to do to be honest.
“to have that combative left-hander in that red ball format will stand us in good stead.
“everytime he played, the tempo he played at, the way he looked out in the middle was a good sign for us.
“he’s a high quality performer and with an overseas batsman it’s nice to have them for the whole season. his record in white ball cricket as well speaks for itself.”
leach added: “we all know batters will go in and out of form over the course of a six month period (season) but when you have them for that amount of time you hope you get the peaks as well as the troughs.
“sometimes if you have guys for short stints and they are out of form, you can cop the raw end of the deal.
“obviously that works the other way as well but it’s nice to have someone in hamish who is going to give us consistency.
“that’s what we are after in red ball cricket so to have someone here for the whole time will give us that.”
*josh dell’s side, mosman cc, went down by three wickets on the second day of the new south wales premier cricket first grade match with bankstown who reached 260-7.
england and surrey opener mark stoneman scored 57 for the victors. dell had been dismissed for a single on the opening day last weekend when mosman were bowled out for 258.
