Ireland and Gloucestershire's favourite son, Hamish O'Marshall has announced that he will not be returning to Gloucestershire next season and instead he will be pursuing the mysterious "too good to turn down opportunity" that his press release indicated. The Jessop Tavern presumes this is a specialist perming/sheep shearing salon back in his native New Zealand
O'Mish leaves the Shire after 11 years filled with the constant thought of what could have been. Arriving as our overseas player in 2006 his 1200 runs, 5 hundreds and average of 60 promised a man who could dominate division 2 attacks and be the mainstay of the middle order. Instead O'Mish never again quite hit the heights of that first season.
His change to becoming an Irish international meant that he became the Tony Cascarino of the cricket world. Not quite as good a player as he could have been, and not actually Irish. Rather remarkably, O'Mish only passed 1,000 championship runs in a season one more time after that first season (1007 runs in 2013) For a man with Test match hundreds against the Aussies of Warne and McGrath there will always be a feeling of what he could have been when we think about his time with Gloucestershire.
All that said, he has been a model pro and has continued with a ludicrous haircut right up to the age of 37, and for that we salute a man of rare courage.
A pair of long-suffering Gloucestershire County Cricket club fans attempt to put the world (and the Glos administration) to rights. Themes include: Is one England ODI a year a good model for financial success and ground redevelopments, whether a batting average of 35 in Division 2 of the County Championship is acceptable and why Glos continue to be rubbish.
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