Yorkshire’s new overseas signing Neil Wagner has enjoyed quite the week.

The left-arm New Zealand fast bowler, currently playing in the first of two Test Matches against England at the Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui, has enjoyed both team and personal success.

On Saturday, the 36-year-old claimed 2-22 as his Northern Districts side won the T20 Super Smash competition, beating Canterbury in the final. A couple of days earlier, he had taken 3-30 in an Eliminator victory over his former side Otago.

Then, on the opening day of the Test on Thursday, Wagner claimed 4-82, including the wickets of new county colleagues Joe Root and Harry Brook. 

He went beyond 250 Test Match wickets and reached 800 in his first-class career.

Wagner has signed on for the opening 10 matches of this season’s LV= Insurance County Championship. 

Coach Ottis Gibson and another of Yorkshire’s overseas signings for 2023, David Wiese, also tasted T20 domestic success earlier this week.

Gibson has spent the last month working as an assistant coach with the Gulf Giants team in the inaugural ILT20 competition in the UAE, with Namibian all-rounder Wiese – a Vitality Blast recruit for Yorkshire – also in their squad.

The Giants beat the Desert Vipers in Sunday’s final, with Adam Lyth in the Vipers’ team.

Wiese has since moved on to Pakistan to help the Lahore Qalandars defend their Pakistan Super League crown. Having won their opener against Shan Masood’s Multan Sultans, they play their second on Sunday against Karachi Kings.

Like Lyth, Adil Rashid also tasted disappointment as the Pretoria Capitals were beaten in Sunday’s SAT20 final by the Sunrisers Eastern Cape.

Rashid is slated to play in the PSL with Multan, but he didn’t play in their opening game.

Captain Hollie Armitage claimed a trio of awards at the Northern Diamonds gala dinner at Headingley last Friday, including two player of the year awards.

Armitage claimed 10 catches for the Diamonds in 2022 – five in each of the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy and Charlotte Edwards Cup campaigns. As a result, she was named fielder of the year for the second year running.

But it was her form with bat and ball, plus her captaincy, which gained more acclaim. The 25-year-old scored 494 runs across both competitions combined and struck 15 times with the ball. 

As a result, she was named player of the year and players’ player of the year.

Katie Levick and Lauren Winfield-Hill were honoured as bowler and batter of the year respectively, while Grace Hall was named Academy players’ player of the year and Harriet Robson coaches’ player of the year.

Neither Lauren Winfield-Hill nor Sterre Kalis, who were named on the final list for the women’s IPL auction earlier this week, attracted bids.

The Diamonds duo missed out for the first-time competition which will be played between March 4 and 26 in Mumbai.

It was perhaps most surprising that Kalis didn’t attract attention given the Dutch batter’s status as an Associate nation cricketer.

Each team can field four overseas players per game, but they can also play a fifth as long as they are from an Associate nation. 

England all-rounder Nat Sciver-Brunt, who has represented the Diamonds when available across the first three seasons of regional cricket, gained the highest English bid at £320,000 from the Mumbai Indians.

Yorkshire and England Disability star Alex Jervis is currently in Kenya with the Cricket Without Boundaries team aiming to deliver education via sport across the country.

Jervis is a fast bowler who won the Learning Disability Ashes in Australia last summer as well as helping Yorkshire’s D40 team win promotion to the National Quest League.

He has already broken his target of raising £950 for the trip having initially donated kit to the CWB cause last summer. 

“The sport has given me so many opportunities to learn and grow,” he said. “Cricket Without Boundaries gives me the opportunity to give back to the game.”

You can donate to Alex’s cause via his JustGiving page: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/alex1jervis

The ECB have confirmed a couple of interesting rule changes for the 2023 LV= Insurance County Championship, the main one designed to encourage the type of attacking cricket currently being played by the likes of Harry Brook, Joe Root and the rest of England’s Test team.

Five points, as opposed to eight, will be on offer for the draw, while batting bonus points in 110 overs will now be accrued when reaching 250, 300, 350, 400 and 450.

The Kookaburra ball, used for away Test series such as the Ashes in Australia, will also be trialled instead of the Dukes ball in rounds nine and 10.

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