The new County Championship season begins on Friday when Durham head to Trent Bridge to face Nottinghamshire, but while Matthew Potts should be part of the visitors’ pace attack, there will be three notable absentees from the bowling ranks.
Stokes was at Seat Unique Riverside today as Durham conducted their traditional pre-season media day, but the England Test skipper is continuing his rehabilitation programme following hamstring surgery at the start of the year.
Wood underwent surgery on his left knee earlier this month, and is expected to be sidelined until July, while Carse was forced to drop out of the England squad at the recent Champions Trophy because of a toe injury.
All three will be part of England’s plans for this winter’s Ashes tour in Australia, provided they are fit, and with a busy summer schedule featuring a Test series against India, a five-day game against Zimbabwe and white-ball matches against the West Indies, South Africa and Ireland, Campbell has accepted the trio are extremely unlikely to feature for Durham in the next seven months.
“I would say that when you look at Carse, Stokes and Wood, then at this stage, they’re probably not likely to play for us,” admitted Durham’s head coach. “They’re all coming back from serious injuries.
“The facts are that they need to get up and running by the time the Test matches start. In the meantime, Matthew Potts will play a lot of cricket for us and be ready to go. Anyone else we get after that is a bonus really. My expectation is that it’ll be zero – anything else is an added bonus.”
While Stokes and Wood have not played regularly for Durham for a number of years now, Carse was a key factor in last season’s successful return to the top-flight of the County Championship.
Had he not broken down at the Champions Trophy, the 29-year-old might well have been available for at least some of Durham’s early-season matches, but with the Ashes beginning to loom large, Campbell fully appreciates why the England hierarchy will not want to take any chances with one of their leading fast-bowling assets.
“We’ve known about his foot problems for a year now,” he said. “It’s not new, but he needs to get it right if he’s going to be playing a lot of Test cricket.
“If we look at it, then I think Brydon Carse is probably the number one priority for England right now. With what he’s shown in Test cricket, he’s born for that sort of stuff. There’s 11 Tests over the summer and winter, and I think he’s going to be number one on England’s list to make sure that he’s ready to go for that.
“Does that mean he’s going to play for us? I’m not so sure. But like I’ve said a million times, he’s down here because he loves being here. This is his club. He’s a North-East boy, and every moment he gets to spend around us, we enjoy. I would have thought Test-match cricket is the priority for Brydon at the minute though.”
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There is a chance Potts could be restored to the international ranks at some stage this summer, meaning Durham’s bowling resources could become extremely stretched as they look to improve on last season’s fifth-place finish in Division One of the Championship.
Australian Brendan Doggett will not feature against Nottinghamshire, but he should be available for the opening home game against Warwickshire and is due to remain with Durham through the rest of April and May.
There are also high hopes for 20-year-old Daniel Hogg and 17-year-old James Minto, two highly-promising local youngsters who broke into the first-team ranks last season.
“We have to get everyone fit, and I’m not going to lie, we have some injury problems at the moment,” said Campbell. “But once everyone is up and running, we have a bigger depth of talent this year.
“Sam Connors has come in, Paul Coughlin will have a bigger role, someone like Daniel Hogg, we thought he was a two or three-year project, but what we saw last year made us go, ‘Oh my God, how can we not pick this kid?’ James Minto will continue to improve, we have to keep exposing our youngsters.”
Norton-based Minto became the second-youngest player to take a first-class wicket since World War Two when he made his Durham debut at the age of just 16 last September, and his performances during the recent pre-season tour of Zimbabwe suggest he is ready to become a more regular presence in the senior ranks this season.
“If you’d seen him bowl in Zimbabwe, then you’d have said, ‘Jeez he’s not 17’,” said Campbell. “I’m not stupid, and we’re not going to break our young kids. We have to pick them at the right time and in the right places, but we will give them every opportunity to play.
“Doggett, our overseas pro, will come in having had an unbelievable Shield final and we will continue to get senior overseas bowlers to make sure we have a solid guy to put our bowling attack around. But I have full faith in these kids and we will continue to let them grow.”