JASON Gillespie it is then as Glamorgan's overseas player for next season. I'm pretty happy about that, not ecstatic (Brett Lee might evoke such emotion but that's not realistic) but far, far from unhappy either.

The 32-year-old Gillespie is clearly past his best but it was some best (he had 259 Test wickets at 26) and that does not mean that he cannot bring much to Glamorgan.

Their batsmen will certainly know that Gillespie can still bowl. They only have to cast their minds back to a NatWest Pro40 match at Cardiff last August.

On an admittedly helpful pitch Gillespie showed his true class by recording figures of 7-3-8-1. I reminded skipper David Hemp of that match this week. His reply cannot be printed in this family newspaper, but fear not, amidst the unprintables, was wholesome praise.

Gillespie can be a true role model to Glamorgan's bowlers. He is fine bloke (he spent some time in some Cardiff bars with a couple of us when his mentor Jeff Hammond was coach) and a cricketer who works hard at his game.

As I have said many times in this column, Glamorgan lack experience and he can certainly bring that. He has even got a Test match double century. It was against Bangladesh, mind, but I doubt he will be too eager to tell any of his new team-mates that!

If there is a slight worry it is that he did not take as many first class wickets for Yorkshire last season as he would have liked. In fact he only took 23 wickets at nearly 35 but that was in the first division. He has taken 7-58 for South Australia against Western Australia in the Pura Cup this winter.

I'm told this will be Glam's final signing of the winter. It's a shame Gillespie's team mate Matthew Elliott cannot come as well, as a Kolpak. But finances will not allow apparently. And anyway there still has not been confirmation that Australians can count as Kolpaks.

And that is no bad thing in my opinion. We've got too many already, but anyone who reads my stuff regularly will know how strongly I feel about that particular issue.

But the good thing is that Glamorgan now look so much stronger. With no twinges in his back David Harrison has begun bowling in the nets and Mike Powell is training and practising hard without any reaction in the arm which caused such terrible problems last summer. We all too easily forget how much those two were missed last season.

They are two fine domestic cricketers. Add on Jamie Dalrymple and Matthew Wood, as well as Gillespie (the other new signing, Adam Shantry, will only be a back up bowler surely), and Glamorgan will be a very different proposition next season. It will not be all doom and gloom, believe me.

Turning to the international game it has been fascinating to watch what has happened to England cricket's hierarchy since the Ashes debacle last winter resulted in the commissioning of the Schofield Report. It's been damn confusing as well, though.

There have been so many appointments I have not the faintest idea who is doing what. Everyone seems to have a job of some sort. From nowhere Mike Gatting got a post. Don't ask me what.

And the icing on the cake came last week when David Graveney was appointed as something called the performance manager. He was sacked as chairman of selectors but was still found a job.

Maybe the England and Wales Cricket Board felt some sympathy for him. After all he was in charge of selection for eleven years without being properly paid for it. The expenses weren't bad apparently, but now there is £80,000 a year on offer he's been sacked.

I actually think £80,000 isn't enough. I know it sounds an awful lot but if I tell you some of the top Sky TV commentators are probably on three, four maybe even five times that amount then you will realise that you are not going to get top-notch applicants for the post.

Not that Geoff Miller is a bad choice. I actually think that he is a good choice. But is he the best choice? It was the same question that should have been asked when Peter Mores was appointed coach. Then the job was not advertised. There were not even any interviews.

There were, however, interviews for the selection jobs last week and Ashley Giles and James Whitaker have been chosen as Miller's part-time assistants.

Giles is a sound option but my worry is that he has only just been appointed as Warwickshire's director of cricket. That is a big enough task on its own.

Presumably Giles will only be able to comment on second division players as that is where Warwickshire are next season- and watch everyone take their game up a notch against the Bears now.

Whitaker will have to watch the first division stuff. If I'm honest, I'm not sure what to make of his elevation. I'm not massively for or against.

What I do know is that there have been that many new appointments so that, if England do lose the Ashes in 2009, we will have no idea whatsoever who to blame. Clever that.