Pace ace Jonny's off to the Middle East
GLOBE-TROTTING South Tyneside cricketer Jonny Wightman is off on his international travels again.
A bowler of waspish pace, a lusty middle-order batsman and athletic fielder, he has already been on MCC tours to Argentina in 2006 and Uganda two years later.
And today he flies from Heathrow to Dubai as a member of another official 15-strong party to play seven games in a fortnight in that country, Abu Dhabi and Oman as the hierarchy at Lord's seek to develop the game in far-flung parts.
Jonny, 26, a professional at Boldon in the Durham Senior League last year and recruited by Premiership top dogs South Northumberland this season, has been quietly warned that temperatures will head towards 100 degrees – so to be armed with powerful sunblock!
Because of the searing heat, the five 50-over and two Twenty20games – against opponents that include the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi and Emirates Palace Gentlemen – will be played in the cooler afternoon and evening.
He first attracted the attention of MCC officials with good performances as a sports science student for Leeds-Bradford University Centre of Cricketing Excellence side, which resulted in him being selected for the two earlier tours.
His performances on those trips, and his amiable personality, led to him playing for an MCC side against Northern Ireland's World Cup squad, and for teams organised by Sir Tim Rice and the Lord's Taverners in charity matches.
And he earned a niche in the game's history when he played in an MCC team against Scotland in a 50-over game two years ago at Lord's, when a pink ball was used experimentally for the first time in this country.
Among spectators on that occasion was his father Robin, formerly an opening bowler for Wearmouth and Boldon in the Durham Senior League and now groundsman at South Shields Cricket Club's Wood Terrace ground, and his mother Ellen.
Health trainer Jonny, whose cricketing career began with South Shields, and was a major force in the club being elevated to the Premiership, is also a well-known local footballer, as a striker for Northern League Division One side South Shields.
He said: "I am well aware of how lucky I am to have been given the opportunity to play cricket and help with the development of the game in places that I would otherwise probably never have seen.
"In Uganda, I helped coach crippled native cricketers and visited an orphanage where one little girl had been rescued from a rubbish skip as a baby. These are things you are never likely to forget."
Ex-Middlesex and Somerset off-spinning all-rounder Keith Dutch will captain the forthcoming tour, and Durham CCC player Will Gidman is also in the party.
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Weather for South Shields
Friday 10 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -3 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 2 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: South west
