Brief profile of Richard Sladdin by Matthew Reed

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Player:

RW Sladdin

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DateLine: 14th November 2005

 

Richard Sladdin was Derbyshire’s premier spinner in the early 1990’s, and captain Kim Barnett thought so highly of him that he named him as one of five young cricketers at Derby that he wouldn’t swap for any other five in the English game (the others being Karl Krikken, Dominic Cork, Chris Adams and Tim O’Gorman). However, Sladdin arguably had the least fulfilled career of this group. As the wickets at Derby were always prepared to suit the home side’s impressive battery of seamers, Sladdin was never going to be a spear point of the attack. His role fell into that occupied by too many English spinners of the modern age, namely that of boeling an over before lunch and tea, and long spells under the glorious midsummer skies which neither assisted the seamers deliveries nor preserved their energy. Against Essex in 1991, Sladdin bowled 68 overs for his 5-186, although his efforts were in vain as Derbyshire lost by an innings. An example of the nightmare to come came in July 1993, when Sladdin ran into Graham Hick (in the purest example of his flat track bully persona), and he recorded the painful match figures of 40.4-5-203-1. Sladdin’s nadir came in 1994, when he had match figures of 0-190 against Durham, the worst bowling analysis in Derbyshire history. However, in Sladdin’s defence, the pitch resembled a motorway rather than a cricket wicket, and such figures demonstrated how Sladdin’s role was almost exclusively a defensive one, designed to absorb the oppositions pressure rather than to exert his own. The Durham match really was a career killer though. Sladdin appeared twice more that season, but his confidence was understandably undermined, and the first team appearences of fellow left arm spinner Matthew Taylor gave notice that Derbyshire were now looking elsewhere. Sladdin played for Somerset in one First-class match against Oxford University in 1997, and despite helping to dismantle the students second innings out with 5-60 that was his last appearance in the First-class game.

 

(November 2005)

 

(Article: Copyright © 2005 Matthew Reed)