Continued emphasis on the replenishment of its batting stocks looks like remaining a key theme of the South Australian state team's development. Or at least that seems to be the case from viewing the Redbacks' initial list of contracted players for the 2001-02 domestic season.

The South Australians possess an excellent bowling attack and two of the most outstanding batsmen in Australian domestic cricket in Darren Lehmann and Greg Blewett. However, their middle order has struggled at different times in recent seasons and the quest for more consistent performances from the entirety of their batting line-up remains high on the agenda.

In this squad - which contains nineteen fully contracted players and three on new rookie deals - there are as many as eleven specialist batsmen. Together with Lehmann and Blewett who, with speedster Jason Gillespie, hold Australian Cricket Board (ACB) contracts and are therefore not on this list, that now gives the Redbacks' squad significant batting depth.

Although each of them featured in a number of matches for the state in 2000-01, newcomers to the contracted list from last season are batsmen Ben Higgins and Nathan Adcock and all-rounder Mick Miller. Experienced left arm orthodox spinner Brad Young can also be considered as something of a new recruit this year after he missed the entirety of the domestic season because of a serious knee injury.

The three players who have secured rookie contracts - the newly-introduced deals which allow each of the states to offer $A10,000 retainers to a small group of previously unsigned cricketers under the age of 23 - are batsmen Cameron Borgas and Matthew Cosgrove and paceman Matthew Weekes. All three are among the current intake of scholarship holders at the Commonwealth Bank Cricket Academy, and have been a key part of South Australian underage squads for a number of seasons.

Under existing ACB rules, each of the six state associations completed their initial lists of at least fourteen signings (and allocated the bulk of their player payment pool) for 2001-02 by last Friday. Behind Queensland's announcement last week, South Australia is the second state to have formally unveiled its new squad. The other four states' lists are each expected to be announced inside the next twenty-four hours.

© 2001 CricInfo Ltd