Brief profile of Matthew Vandrau by Matthew Reed

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Player:

MJ Vandrau

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DateLine: 22nd November 2005

 

Surrey born but Johannesburg raised, Matthew Vandrau was able to enjoy domestic careers in both England and South Africa. His Derbyshire career was in two parts, with a break in 1995 when he decided to try and commit himself fully to a career with Transvaal. However, a poor season in South Africa in 1995-6 led to his return to Derbyshire. The tale of his career was clearly one of two countries, with his wickets coming at an excellent 22 in South Africa but an unconvincing 46 in England. His technically correct and well applied batting also offered something (he was orthodox enough to open for Derbyshire on occasion), although his off-spin only ever looked threatening on very helpful pitches. That said, he did at least take advantage of one such pitch to spin Derbyshire to an unlikely victory at Southampton during their wonderful 1996 season. In his final season with Derbyshire there were efforts to play him as a no.5 batsman with his off-spin as his second suit, although the bottom line was that he never did enough with either bat or ball to secure a future in the county game, although he was in a majority of spinners in finding most English pitches unreceptive to spin.

 

(November 2005)

 

(Article: Copyright © 2005 Matthew Reed)