A SPINNER who can bat will be top of Herefordshire's selection committee chairman Malcolm Morgan's wish list for next season.

"We missed a quality spinner this season and had hoped that Matthew Rawnsley would have been available more," said Morgan. "He will need to be replaced for next season.

"We may have found the answer, however, in the Lancashire Leagues through our Yorkshire connection."

The 'Yorkshire connection', based around former county player Ismail Dawood and the Bradford/Leeds UCCE side, has proved fruitful ground this year.

"Gulsheraz Ahmed has been a good find, although Ryan Bradshaw and Tom Glover have been available less than we hoped. But that's because of their university and MCC commitments, so that's been good for them," said Morgan.

"Gariv Nawaz only came in for the last game of the season but he is very keen to play next year."

Few players have been able to commit themselves definitely for next season, although Morgan is hopeful that Mohammad Ali, who came in to the side for the last two games, will be available.

"He told us that he is off to New Zealand for the winter but he expects to be back in March," said Morgan.

The chairman of selectors also had some encouraging words for the younger, local contingent, saying: "Tom Brierley looks a good prospect and he wants to learn. He was thrown in to open the batting in his first game and stayed there ever since, getting to 15 or 20 in most innings without going on.

"Dave Exall played a couple of useful innings, as did Henry Langford who came up with 25s and 30s without going on."

Going on to make a big innings was a problem among the batsmen, Morgan admitted.

"We only had one regular batsman who could score hundreds, and that was Chris Boroughs, where we really needed three."

Boroughs was presented with a set of Herefordshire cuff-links to mark his 50th championship appearance and 3,000 runs for the county, but another long-serving player may have reached the end of the road.

Harshad Patel has been a regular since the county's championship debut in 1992, but played only twice this year because of injury.

Morgan admitted that ongoing injury concerns, as well as Patel's age - he is 43 and the ECB now provides financial incentives for a side with an average age of 26 or less will mean he is unlikely to be selected in the future.

Luctonians stalwart Morgan was, however, far from discouraged by the side's performance and optimistic for the future.

"We are making progress and we have competed in all but two of the games," he said.

"We had a win, which was more than we did last season, and we also had a decent run in the Cup.

"We have also established a link with Warwickshire coach Mark Greatbatch which means that some young Warwickshire players may be available to us and six or seven of our younger players will go up to Edgbaston for training in the winter."