Cricket: Back to the beginning for Ryder

Jesse Ryder has been having a successful season for Essex and is expected to boost CD's chances of short-game success. Photo / Dean Purcell

Talented but troubled player returning home to warm welcome from Central Districts.

Jesse Ryder is going home next summer. The wayward lefthander, whose international cricket career went off the rails in the last year, is returning to Central Districts where it all began in early 2003.

And if he starts with a bang, familiar drums will probably start beating again.

But they should be silenced because Ryder will be 31 next month, and his international days are almost surely over.

Those in charge of New Zealand cricket have indicated, with solid reasons, that they don't see him as an essential pick, and anyway things are travelling quite nicely thank you for Brendon McCullum and Mike Hesson's team.

Remember the drama late last year over whether Ryder should be included in the World Cup squad.

That decision didn't turn out too badly.

Since then he's been enjoying himself at Essex, where he took 10 wickets in their thumping win over Glamorgan yesterday in the second division county championship.

After making the first of his 21 first-class centuries for CD against Canterbury in Napier - when his teammates included Ross Taylor, whose first-class debut had come a game earlier, current team manager Lance Hamilton and the just-retired Jamie How - Ryder spent nine seasons at Wellington, then the last two at Otago.

CD are chuffed to have the boy back - "although Jesse's been playing elsewhere for a while, he's very definitely at home when he's with the Stags," Hamilton said yesterday.

It's worth recalling that Ryder's 88th and last appearance for New Zealand was an ODI against India in Wellington on January 31 last year. His final test was that stunning seven-run win over Australia at Hobart, coming up to four years ago. How time flies.

Ryder is likely to stick mainly, if not exclusively, to one-day and T20 games for CD.

The province had an up and down 2014-15 season - last in the Plunket Shield, fifth in the Georgie Pie Super Smash, but winners of the Ford Trophy 50-over title. They have a collection of decent cricketers there, notably rapidly rising batting talent Will Young and new international left arm seamer Ben Wheeler.

Ryder, who will be confirmed among the 14 contracted players at CD next week, can certainly help the side out. He looks more like a hand for hire for various contractors around the world these days.

The mind drifts back to a conversation with a prominent New Zealand cricket person and solid judge of a player. After Ryder's first test ton, 102 against India in Hamilton six years ago, he was asked how far the gifted player could go.

The observer replied, with a hint of sadness, that he doubted Ryder would be around long enough to show his full capabilities. The die in many minds, aware of a young man with troubles off the park, was already cast.

Ryder is still showing those special talents sometimes, but there should be an asterisk alongside his name in the record books to denote what might have been.