Jeremy Snape has, over the past year, become an established member of the England one-day set up. At the same time, he has fallen out of favour with his county, Gloucestershire, to the extent that he only appeared in four county championship matches for them during the season just finished. He lost his place at the end of May and failed to get it back although he did appear in limited-overs cricket. Now comes news that the 29 year-old off-spinning all-rounder has been released by Gloucestershire and will have to find a new county.

The news came in a press release issued by the county in which it was said: "This has been a difficult decision about a player who has performed very well for Gloucestershire County Cricket Club and achieved a lot of success in the four years he has been with us. However, his relationship with the cricket management over the past 18 months has been very poor and has reached the stage where we believe it is unlikely to improve."

It was no secret that he had not seen eye-to-eye with the coach, John Bracewell (apart from the fact that Bracewell stands 6' 2" and Snape is only 5' 8"), and his release is an unfortunate outcome for someone who, only recently, stated that he wanted to continue playing for the county he joined in 1999 after making his debut for Northamptonshire in 1992. He contributed fully to the Gloucestershire success in winning five one-day tournaments in his first two years, catching the attention of the national selectors.

He won the man-of-the-match award when he made his one-day international debut against Zimbabwe in Harare almost exactly a year ago. He had both the Flower brothers stumped in the same over on his way to figures of two for 39, and also held a brilliant catch to dismiss Guy Whittall.

He is an outstanding fielder in the covers, scores useful runs in the lower middle order, while his control of flight has brought him success with his bowling. At a time when there is a paucity of spin bowlers in English cricket, he should not have too much difficulty in finding another county.

© CricInfo