Year of the comeback:Sharpening the desire and the cutting edge: Cricket

Ed Giddins is a thoroughly likeable chap. He has a boyish charm in his manner and a ready sparkle in his eyes. No jokes should be made at this point about how it might have got there.

Giddins always conveyed the impression of taking the game seriously but you could sense that for him it was just that: a game. He was still on the verge of becoming a top-rank English seam bowler in the summer of 1996 when his gradually increasing fame became notoriety overnight. In August that year he was banned from first-class cricket for 20 months after failing a random drugs test. Cocaine was the illicit substance identified, which somehow seemed to confirm that he might be a party animal.

The Test and County Cricket Board, as it then was, probably felt they had to make a significant example, but if their suspension was not Draconian enough, his county, Sussex, rather than offering succour support and counselling, reacted by sacking him. Giddins was recruited by Warwickshire and this April, his punishment served, he will make his long-awaited return.

"I am fitter than I've ever been in my life," he said. "When the ban was imposed I was out and about a bit but since then I've knuckled down to do a lot of work at the gym. My concentration is focused on bowling well for Warwickshire. I want to go as far as I can." Assuming that the past is forgiven and forgotten, as it should be, there are sound reasons for supposing that might be all the way.

Giddins was in the middle of his best season when the dope testers called (it should be said that he has never been altogether happy with their findings) and he demonstrated that a friendly demeanour did not indicate a shortage of resolve. As the weeks went by and the Lord's disciplinary machinery ground on, Giddins continued to lead the Sussex attack with aplomb. When his summer was brought to its summary close he had 48 wickets at 25 runs each.

The move to Warwickshire, a side accustomed both to winning and to well- honed competitive instincts, should work for him. He will benefit from bowling with the wily old bird Tim Munton and will add a cutting edge to an attack already possessing its share of containers. Giddins played club cricket in Kent last year, and was more recently to be found selling Christmas trees in partnership with Surrey's Nadeem Shahid in London. The next three months will be spent on achieving his objective of match hardness by April. "I've learned how much I want to play and my desire has increased with the months."

If the lay-off has not affected his rhythm and his ability to hit the pitch hard, he should quickly move in to the top half-dozen or so of England's seamers. He has already exhibited his international credentials. In his last representative appearance for England A on their tour of Pakistan two winters ago he took five for 104 in the draining conditions of Peshawar and at the beginning of the 1996 season played for the A Team against The Rest. Seven wickets in the game, including both openers in the second innings, spoke of progress becoming achievement.

Giddins is also a highly entertaining cricketer. He bowls with a full heart and his batting has also earned him a considerable reputation. No cricketer with his experience has an average as low as his (5.68) and no batsman could have expressed such a delight when he hit a couple of sixes in a last-wicket partnership two seasons ago.

Shocked as the cricket world was when the cocaine findings were released, it was somehow no surprise to learn that Giddins had been to a party on the eve of the game during which he failed the test. But he insists that his party days are now over. In its perverse way his long time away from the first-class game might work to his advantage - a year off from fast bowlers' niggling injuries for a start. He will be 27 in July and should be approaching his pomp. Brian Lara may be the main focus of attention at Edgbaston come April but what Ed Giddins can bring to the Warwickshire party, so to speak, may be just as significant.