County men to watch - Owais Shah

Controversially released by Middlesex last season â€" made all the more acrimonious because he found out through a journalist â€" Shah moved to Essex. With his desire to rebuild his reputation, expect Shah to score plenty of runs, mixing classical shots with his own idiosyncratic ones, though he will miss the start of the season due to IPL commitments. At 32, he says he retains ambitions of playing for England. Though he averaged over 50 in all three forms of the game as an overseas player in South Africa during the off season, Shah, seemingly blacklisted from the England set-up, will need to score monumentally to earn a recall.