Brown: I want to play for another three years
Published 28 March 2008
Ali Brown has told Surrey TV that he would like to play for three more years and finish his career at the Brit Oval.
Brown, who signed a one-year deal with the Club at the end of last year, was recently approached to play in the Indian Premier League for Sachin Tendulkar’s team, Bombay, however Brown has declined the offer.
He told Surrey TV, “I got a call a couple of weeks ago from Harbhajan out of the blue, asking if I was keen in coming to the IPL. I did not give it a lot of thought to be honest. Originally I had seen the auctions from a far, so to get that approach was a surprise.”
Singh’s phone call asking about Brown’s availability for the competition came as a result of a request from Tendulkar himself, however the Surrey batsman felt compelled to stand by his Club.
He added, “I Had a very interesting weekend mulling it over and at the end of the day having had 20 years here it would have been quite difficult just to leave like that and at best I would have ended up retiring at the end of the year. I still think that there are two or three years left in me.”
Brown, who turned 38 in February, struggled to hold down a spot in Surrey’s Championship side last season, playing in just nine matches however he is desperately keen to be in the starting eleven for the first match of the season against Lancashire.
“I am very keen to start the first game and prove that my career figures I can maintain from here on in. I am keen to do well in all cricket and at the moment, target with someone like Ramps, who is coming up to 100 hundreds, my target before I finish: I would like to get to fifty. That is six away and I think that I think that’s achievable and something I want to do before I retire.”
Brown, who hit a world record one-day score of 268 against Glamorgan in 2002, also played a huge part in Surrey’s world record team score last year against Gloucestershire when he made 176 from just 97 balls. With this destructive ability to rip the best of attacks apart, it’s doubtful that you can write him off yet…
You can see the whole of Brown's interview with Surrey TV, by clicking here.
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