CRICKET - CD Stags sign Englishman for one-day, T20 campaign

His batting lacks punch but former captain Mathew Sinclair says Englishman Graham Napier is the man to do the job for Central Districts this season.
"We're rapt to have him in the CD team and I rate him highly as a bowler," Sinclair told SportToday after CD CEO Blair Furlong yesterday announced last season's Wellington Firebirds allrounder would live in Hawke's Bay and compete in the HRV Twenty20 Cup in the 2009-10 season.
Furlong says the 29-year-old Essex and England A representative will play several post-Christmas 50-over matches, depending on the domestic schedule, which New Zealand Cricket still hasn't released.
"He's an opening bowler of around 135 to 140km/h and he holds the Twenty20 batting record there," says Furlong, adding Stags coach Dermot Reeve and this season's captain, Jamie How, are delighted with his selection as their overseas player.
"As there is no clash with international fixtures in January 2010 the Stags with their Black Caps available are confident of being extremely competitive in the HRV Cup," says Furlong, who will step down as CEO in May next year.
Napier, a right-hand batsman and a right-arm fast bowler, was in the MVP rankings as a bowler last season but failed to deliver with the willow.
In a Twenty20 cup match against Sussex on June 24 last year, he was unbeaten on 152 from 58 balls. The innings smashed several records - notably the highest individual score in a T20 innings in England and in the domestic Twenty20 competition; the highest number of sixes in an individual Twenty20 innings (16); the most runs scored in boundaries in an individual T20 innings (136 runs, scored as 10 fours, and 16 sixes).
It also broke the record for most sixes in a domestic one-day innings and tied the record for most sixes in any domestic innings, set by unwanted Australian international Andrew Symonds during a County Championship game in 1995.
The Mumbai Indians signed up Napier for the 2009 IPL Season for an undisclosed amount. This March, he had a call up to the England Lions squad for the first time since 2004 and in May he was confirmed as a member of the 15-man England squad for the 2009 Twenty20 World Cup on the same day as he made his first appearance for the Mumbai Indians.
Wellington this season opted for English international Owais Shah in the T20 version of the game. Northern Districts Knights have scored Sri Lankan dasher Tillakaratne Dilshan while Otago Volts will boast another English international, Dimitri Mascarenhas.
Ironically Napier's first game for the Stags in the T20 Cup is against the Firebirds at Pukekura Park, New Plymouth, on January 3.
Snaring 15 scalps at 17.66 with an economy of 7.26 runs an over is just what the Stags need considering their wealth of batting talent in Sinclair, How, Ross Taylor and Jacob Oram.
"Dermot was in England during the Twenty20 World Cup (July/August) and Jake (Oram) and Ross were talking to a few players, too," says Furlong of how CD built a rapport with Napier.
Sinclair says Napier will be pivotal in their bowling equation of Michael Mason, Brendon Diamanti and Ewen Thompson.
"He's a hit-and-miss batsman but he's been up there in the MVP almost the whole of last season.
"As I said most of last season we were lacking in a death bowler, someone who could hit the block hole," says Sinclair, who has stepped down because of his commitment to working as a photocopier sales consultant for former New Zealand international-cum-commentator Derek Stirling.
NZ Cricket's delay in announcing the one-day schedule, he says, means players can't organise things, either.
"I'm obviously looking at other things outside cricket with the job and the baby," he says, after becoming a father recently.
"Jamie's been a captain before and you'll find a lot of the guys in the team will respond to him," says Sinclair after a sterling batting season that saw him receive an almost apologetic, last-minute Black Caps call up for an ODI against West Indies in Auckland after ex-CD player Jesse Ryder had to stand down for disciplinary reasons.
Judging by the performance of the Caps in Sri Lanka in the past few weeks, it seems obvious New Zealand desperately need batsmen with Sinclair's experience and stickability in an international calendar that has a record six tests on home soil.