There is hope for us all - well, maybe not me with such a gammy knee, but Shaun Udal's selection at the age of 36 for England's winter tour of Pakistan will have given hope to many county cricketers.

It sends out a message of never give up, maybe even one of never retire. That is what Robert Croft did a couple of years ago. I wonder if he regrets that now. It might well have been him celebrating a call-up this week.

He certainly had a better game for Glamorgan at Cardiff last week than Udal did for Hampshire, but overall Udal has had the better season. And without wishing to brag too much, I was one of a minority who suggested beforehand that England should pick him.

I have seen him on a number of occasions this season and he has bowled better than ever before. His selection does though indicate how bare England's spin cupboard is. But I believe the selectors have been quite canny because Udal can be used on tour to tutor Warwickshire's Alex Loudon. He is a good prospect even if his figures this season do not suggest he is that near the finished article.

What excites many is the fact that he can bowl a 'doosra' - a ball bowled with an off-spinner's action but which goes away from the right-handed batsman like a leg-break. It is the delivery with which Muttiah Muralitharan, Saqlain Mushtaq and Harbhajan Singh cause havoc.

Loudon can bat, too. In fact in county cricket he is still considered a batsman who bowls. He must be happy that he left Kent at the end of last season; it seems to have invigorated him. He might not have left if his good friend Ed Smith had not been so shabbily treated in a row over the captaincy. It is funny how things turn out sometimes.

It has not been funny for Jonathan Hughes though, who has been released by Glamorgan. In some ways that was expected, in others it was not. He has had a strange season; lots of ducks early on, then two centuries in a match, then a lot of twenties to finish before the axe fell.

The first thing to say is that it is unfortunate that a 24-year-old should be deemed surplus to requirements in the same season that he achieved the feat of twin centuries in a match. I can tell you that I managed that once in 19 years.

It was said that the pitch (Southgate) on which he scored them was a batsman's paradise, but I must have played on plenty of pitches like that; in fact the only occasion on which I did it was at Abergavenny in 1997. Now that was a graveyard for bowlers.

Hughes' release reinforces the view that county cricketers are given much less time to develop in this modern age. I did not start scoring runs properly until I was 26.

With Hughes and Ian Thomas gone, Glamorgan must enter the transfer market. Surely they have made plans already. I hope so. I was talking to Durham's Gary Pratt last week and he seemed unhappy with his county. He might not be a bad signing; certainly not the worst fielder as he showed with that run out of Ricky Ponting in the Trent Bridge Test. His team-mate Nicky Peng is another looking to move - as a youngster he was coveted by Glamorgan - as is Worcestershire's Stephen Peters and Somerset veteran Michael Burns.

Glamorgan pride themselves on producing their own players, but there are times when experience has to be brought in from elsewhere. This is such an occasion. One hopes we also receive some good news on the re-signing of Mike Kasprowicz, who has been courted by other counties.